Charm Bracelets
by detective-sweetheart
Summary: It was something from the last few years in which he'd investigated murders, something that he'd just as soon forget and something that he now has no choice but to remember.
1. Prologue

His watch told him it was midnight, which meant that he was right on schedule. The playground was completely empty; the only sounds were those of the normal New York night traffic. Even so, he looked around just to make sure: if someone was around, he would be unable to finish his task. Luckily enough, no one was. He opened the trunk of his car and looked inside.

She'd been a beautiful child, really. Blonde hair, blue eyes…she reminded him of one of his other victims. Not her looks, but the way she'd been…that is, the way she'd been before he'd stolen her away. Now, she was completely lifeless, her eyes closed for the rest of eternity. And he felt absolutely no remorse.

Bending down, he picked up her tiny body, taking care not to disturb her any more than she already had been. Quickly surveying the area, he decided that the stairs leading to the main structure were the best place to leave her. And leave her there, he did, moving back to admire his 'handiwork'. She looked almost like an angel, just lying there. After a few minutes he turned to lave, without looking behind.

Now that this one was gone, he thought, it was nearly time for another.

A/N: Ok. So...now that I've gone and reworked this so it sounds a little better, I'll just see how it's taken this time around. Anyways...LOSVU is not mine, never has been, never will be, and I'm pretty sure I know how to deal with it by now.


	2. Chapter 1

A/N: Yay! Finally, a chapter for Charm Bracelets...since it's been a year since I started it...meh. Anyways, yeah. LSM, you asked for Munch and you got him...and Olivia. Now maybe you'll stop poking me...just kidding. Anyways, SVU isn't mine, so now that I'm done rambling, I'll just go.

* * *

I found it almost amusing in a rather sick, twisted sort of way how there always seemed to be a number of people already gathered on the other side of the crime scene tape by the time the cops got there. The sun had only just started to rise and already a case had come in. It wasn't surprising, considering...just sickening. Olivia and I exchanged glances as we eyed the crowd before us and I shook my head.

"You think any of them know anything?" I asked. She smirked.

"I think they're using this to wake them up instead of drinking coffee like normal people." As she spoke, she tugged the Styrofoam cup that I was holding out of my hands and took a sip before starting forward. "Might as well get this over with."  
The crowd parted as we flashed our shields at them and we crossed the tape. Melinda looked up at us as we did, and sighed.

"She was strangled," she told us bluntly. "No signs of any fluids as of yet, but it's obvious that she was raped."

"Can you give us a time of death?" Olivia asked. Melinda nodded.

"Given the body temp when we got here, I'd say anywhere from ten to twelve hours ago, but I won't be sure until I get her to the morgue."

It was seven o'clock in the morning. From what we'd just been told, our victim had been dead since at least seven o'clock the night before. I wondered vaguely then whether or not anyone had missed her. From the looks of it, she was only about eight...she should have been home at seven, not out with someone she didn't know. But it wasn't that fact that caught my attention.

"Was that there when you got here?" I asked. Melinda glanced at me startled, before looking towards where I'd pointed and nodding.

"It was super-glued on," she said. "CSU tried to get it off, but they couldn't, so they left it. Why?"

"No reason," I replied vaguely, "I was just wondering. Anything else you can tell us before you take her?" Melinda shook her head.

"I'll call you if I find anything," she replied. She turned away then and motioned to her assistants. Within minutes, they were moving the body. I remained where I was, watching them go. The body had been covered again, but it had already been committed to my memory like so many others before it. It wasn't until I noticed Olivia waving her hand in front of my face that I realized we were still standing next to a playground structure, and suddenly I was back in the present.

"What?" I asked. She cast an almost concerned look at me, eyeing me intently for a long moment before speaking.

"You all right?" she asked in reply. "You look like you just saw a ghost." I bit back the sudden, mad desire to laugh. She had no idea.

"I'm fine," I replied. "CSU tell you anything yet?" Olivia shook her head.

"No," she said, "I was waiting for you, but you spaced out on me...are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine," I repeated. "Let's find out what CSU has to say." We walked towards the technicians that still remained; they looked up at us and exchanged glances, sighing.

"Looks like a dump job," one of them said. "No signs of blood or a struggle...your victim was more than likely dead when she was brought here."

"Is that all you can tell us?" Olivia asked, sounding annoyed. The one who had spoken nodded.

"Whoever did this is determined not to be caught, Detective," he said. "We've been all over this playground structure twice...there's nothing."

Nothing. For some reason, I wasn't surprised. I'd been trying to convince myself that this was all a coincidence since seeing the victim's body, but I was starting to believe now that it wasn't. There was no way it could have been.

"Third time's the charm," I said dryly. "Maybe if you go over it again, you'll find something." All of the technicians stared at me then, as if my screws had suddenly come loose; I stared back at them.

"What?" I asked. "You can't hear or something?" A split second later all of them had gone off to go over the structure for a third time. Olivia stared at me.

"What was that all about?" she asked. I shook my head and turned to face her.

"Nothing," I said, "It was nothing. But you can't tell me those idiots didn't find anything around here...there has to be something."

"No, there doesn't," Olivia countered. "You know as well as I do that sometimes there's nothing for us to go on right at the scene...what's gotten into you?"

"Nothing's gotten into me," I told her, "I just...it's too early in the morning for this sort of thing."

Olivia laughed. "Too early?" she asked. "That's the last thing I'd expect to hear from you...maybe from Elliot, but..."

"Liv, I don't want to have this argument right now, all right?" I said. "I just want to see if those guys get anything this time around and then get the hell out of here."

"We still have to notify the victim's family," Olivia said quietly. I gave her a look.

"I know that," I told her. "I know. But we can't exactly do that until we know who she is, can we?"

"Detectives!" The voice of one of the technicians broke into our conversation; we exchanged glances before walking over to where she was. She held out a plain white envelope upon seeing us.

"This was underneath one of the slides," she said, "Guess we missed it the first couple of times."

"You think?" I asked sarcastically, taking the envelope. The tech cast an exasperated look in my direction before walking away; Olivia swatted at me, but missed when I moved, and silence fell.

"Your hands are shaking." Olivia's voice brought me back to the present for a second time, and I looked at her before looking down. She was right. My hands _were_ shaking. And as much as I hated to admit it, I was almost scared of what I was going to find inside the envelope.

"You want me to open it?" she asked. I shook my head and turned it over, glad that it was only taped shut. The sound of the tape ripping off of the paper seemed to echo; I glanced at Olivia, startled that she didn't notice, but she was too busy giving me that look...the one that meant she thought something was wrong and she'd be damned if she didn't find out what it was.

"You look like you're about to be sick," she said, "Let me have that." She reached forward to pull the envelope out of my hands. I pulled away from her and scowled.

"Leave it alone, Liv," I said. She narrowed her eyes at me, moving so that she was standing behind me. I reached into the envelope and withdrew an ID card...one those cards that parents sometimes get their kids so that if anything happens, people know who they are. A smiling, blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl stared back at me. I'd been right. Makayla Lawrence had been exactly eight years old...her birthday had been yesterday.

"God..." Olivia's voice sounded behind me, more disgusted than anything else. "Doesn't get any worse than that."

"No," I said quietly, "It doesn't." I looked towards the crowd; there was still a good amount of people standing around, just watching. I wondered for a moment what would happen if I drew my gun and fired off a shot, just to make them go away. My hand must have moved to my holster to do just that, because the next thing I knew, Olivia's hand was on my shoulder.

"Don't," she said. "The last thing we need right now is for you to end up shooting someone."

"I'd like to think I have better aim than that," I muttered dryly, glancing back at her, but she shook her head.

"Better not take that risk," she told me. "Let's just...let's just see if they know anything, and if they don't, we'll go back to the precinct."

I nodded wordlessly, figuring that it was best for me to just agree with her, and I stowed the ID card in my pocket before we moved to cross the tape. Olivia looked at me right before we did so, stopping dead in her tracks so that I was forced to halt as well, to avoid running into her.

"If you don't want to do this, we don't have to," she said in an undertone, so that those closest to us couldn't hear. "I'll take you back to the precinct."

"You take me back and all these people disappear," I replied, "Then where would we be?"

"We're probably not going to get anywhere as it is; look at them," she said. "How many of them do you really think know something?"  
It was a question she'd asked before...a question all of us had asked before, and the answer was always the same. We were always right about it too: no one ever knew anything. And if they did, we wouldn't see them until a few days had gone by, when they were sure the danger had passed. If it pissed us off enough with adult victims, it pissed us off even more when the victim was a child.

"None," I said finally, "But it's still worth a shot." She gave me an appraising look before allowing me to lift the tape so she could move under it; I followed, and we split up.

I lost track of time then. I didn't know how long we'd been there by the time Olivia finally came walking towards me, nor did I want to. The look on her face was enough to tell me that she hadn't gotten anything, but I asked, anyways. She shook her head.

"You were right," she said, "None of the people I talked to knew anything .What about you?"

"If they did, they weren't saying," I said. I turned so that I was facing the playground, looking directly at the spot where Makayla's body had been. "You know, she wasn't that far from home. A few blocks and she'd have made it."

"Let me see that ID," said Olivia. I pulled it out of my pocket and handed it to her; she looked at it for a long while before handing it back.

"Well, we know who she is now," she said. "Might as well get it over with." She didn't have to elaborate on what she was talking about; it was evident that she meant notifying Makayla's parents about what had happened to their child. I found myself silently praying as we walked back towards the car that Makayla hadn't been an only child; this sort of thing was hard enough for parents to take as it was.

"Give me the keys." Olivia held her hand out to me, and I reached into my pocket a second time, this time drawing out a keyring and handing it to her, thankful that she' d somehow figured out that I was in no mood to drive. I got in on the passenger's side and she looked at me for a long moment before we left.

"You know I'm here if you want to talk about anything, right?" she asked, almost tentatively, as if she were afraid I'd explode. I nodded without saying anything, staring out at the road ahead of us. Olivia sighed.

"What's eating at you?" she asked. "You've been acting weird ever since we saw the body...why?"  
"It's nothing," I told her, the words coming out more harshly than I'd meant it to. "Just leave it alone, Liv. It's nothing you need to worry about."

If I'd said this to Fin, he would have left well enough alone, but I knew better than to think that Olivia would. She always seemed to know when something was bothering me. And I had no doubts that sooner or later, she'd get me to tell everything...everything that I'd been trying so hard to forget.

But then again, no one ever really forgets the first case they ever worked. I was no exception. Olivia glanced at me once more before making a third turn and we found ourselves parked outside a brownstone home not too far from where we'd just been. I closed my eyes, leaning back in the seat, suddenly hesitant to move.

"I'm not doing this alone," Olivia told me flatly. "You're coming with me." Her words left me with no choice. She got out of the car and a few seconds passed before I followed, a cold, numb feeling settling over me. The sound of Olivia's fist on the door echoed louder than the sound the tape had made coming off of the envelope not long ago. The door creaked open, and a little girl looking to be no older than five appeared.

"Who are you?" she demanded, eyeing us intently. I watched as a faint smile appeared on Olivia's face, but said nothing as she answered.

"We're police officers," she said. "Are your parents home?" The girl continued to eye us for another long moment.

"I wanna see your badges," she said bluntly. I chuckled softly, more to myself than anything or anyone else; it was obvious that this child's parents had taught her well. Olivia and I both showed her our shields and she pulled the door further open to allow us entrance.

"Katie, who's at the door, sweetheart?" A woman's voice came floating from a direction that I assumed the kitchen was in; the girl looked at us again before answering.

"It's the police, Mommy," she replied. "They gotta talk to you 'bout something." Footsteps sounded. Katie walked up the stairs, looking supremely unconcerned with what was going on. I envied her that innocence as I watched her go; her mother appeared in the entryway and Olivia looked at me before speaking.

"Are you the mother of Makayla Lawrence?" she asked. We watched in dead silence then as the woman's face went pale. She stumbled backwards, clutching at the doorframe behind her to keep her balance.

"Oh, God..." She started shaking her head, then, closing her eyes as if when she opened them, we wouldn't be there, and this would all be a crazy dream. "Is she...is she..."

"She was found in a park near your home early this morning," I said, sounding more hollow than I usually did when informing a victim's parents of their child's death. I cut myself off as Mrs. Lawrence began to cry, making no effort to hide her emotions. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Katie, sitting at the top of the steps. She was crying, too, more than likely because her mother was. I hoped she didn't know the meaning behind what I'd said, but that in itself was unlikely.

"We're sorry for your loss," Olivia said quietly. "But we'll need you to come to the medical examiner's office to identify the body."

Medical examiner's office. That was another thing about the job. We never called it the morgue when the victim was a child. Always the M.E's office...Mrs. Lawrence nodded through her tears and wiped at her eyes.

"Just tell...just tell me when," she said, her voice shaking. Olivia and I exchanged glances before turning to look at her again.

"We'll be in touch," Olivia told her, and then we were gone, out the door, and back into the cold, but I didn't feel any of it. Olivia, on the other hand, did; I watched as she pulled her coat closer around her as we walked back to the car.

"That was hard," she remarked finally, quietly. I looked at her for a long moment before nodding.

"Yeah," I said, "It was. You driving or am I?"

"I will," she replied, and for that I was grateful. We got in and left, and I couldn't help but look behind me as we did, staring backwards until the house had long since disappeared from view.

"You all right?" Olivia asked again.

"I'm fine." I told her. And earlier, I had been. Now, however, I was lying straight through my teeth. The envelope I'd been handed at the crime scene was heavy in my coat pocket. There was a note inside. I had the feeling I knew who it was from. The little charm that had been glued to Makayla's lips had been a dead giveaway.

It had been a Maryland flag, all red and yellow and black and white. The last time I'd seen one of these murders had been in Baltimore. I'd been a rookie then, the newest of the murder police. And as luck would have it, I'd ended up with the first red-ball of that year.

That had been nearly twenty-four years ago. And I was still, even now, trying to forget


	3. Chapter 2

A/N: Ok. I've decided something else that has to do with this: Every now and then there are going to be flashback scenes to the first round of cases...the ones that led up to this story. So the next chapter's probably going to be in italics, just so you know and can tell. I'll mark them just so it's easy, but yeah...anyways...For those of you who don't know who Abby and Rose are, they're going to have a lot to do with my other stories, namely Made to Be Broken and Life or Something Like It. The second explains them, so I'd read that one if I were you, just so you know. And now that I'm done rambling, I'll go.

* * *

I'd read that letter at least twenty times in the past week and I still hadn't found anything to get me anywhere. I probably should have just handed it over to CSU for them to see if they could get anything, but something kept me from doing it. Probably some deep-rooted fear that if anyone found out what all of this had to do with me, I'd be taken off the case. That was the last thing I wanted. But that damn letter was starting to get on my last nerve. I'd been lying on my back staring up at the ceiling for the past hour with the envelope sitting on the bedside table next to the clock, doing nothing. For some reason, I couldn't make myself move...and then the phone rang, and I reached for it automatically.

"What?"

"Good morning to you too, sunshine." Olivia replied sarcastically. "What happened to that envelope we got from the crime scene?"

"Why?" I asked, sitting up and leaning against the headboard. Olivia sighed.

"Because it's evidence and you had it last," she replied. "You didn't lose it, did you?"

"I have it," I replied, reluctantly. "You don't need it now, do you?"

"It'd be nice," Olivia said dryly, "We don't exactly have much else to work from."

"I know," I said. "I'm on my way in now...I'll bring it with me."

"Fine. See you in a few." A click let me know that she'd hung up. I cast a look a look towards the clock and red digits glared back at me. It was 7:45. I'd fallen asleep in my clothes from the day before, so I changed, and then I grabbed my keys and walked out the door.

The precinct was just as busy as it always was, even that early in the morning. The squad room was no exception. Olivia was sitting at her desk when I walked in, talking to Elliot; I dropped the envelope in front of her and went to sit down. She looked over at me and frowned.

"You don't look too good." she said. I gave her a look. She'd been saying that in various ways since the day we'd found Makayla Lawrence, and it was getting old.

"I'm not getting into this with you," I told her. "You've got the envelope, I'm in the squad room, what more do you want from me?" She didn't answer and I turned away. Behind me, I could hear Elliot asking her what my problem was, but she didn't answer him, either. Instead, she got up and walked over to the board.

"We know Makayla stayed after school to take a test, and then she was supposed to go to a friend's," she said, speaking more to me than to anyone else. "She was supposed to stay at that friend's house at five-thirty, but she never made it..."

Obviously she'd never made it. The ironic thing was that this friend lived only a few houses away. Makayla had almost been home.

"This wasn't someone the Lawrences knew," I said, cutting Olivia off as she continued on. She gave me a startled look.

"How do you know?" she asked. I sighed and rose to my feet, coming to stand beside her.

"If Makayla had been approached by someone she knew, she wouldn't have fought. There wouldn't have been any defensive wounds," I said. "What reason would she have to fight someone she trusted?"

The phone rang, startling us out of our conversation, but Elliot had already picked it up. He hung up about two minutes later and turned to face us.

"That was Warner," he said. "She found something." Olivia and I exchanged glances before moving to retrieve our coats from our chairs and leaving the squad room.

The medical examiner's office was cold, but it was probably just me. Olivia looked at me as we walked in and sighed.

"You sure you want to do this?" she asked.

"I wouldn't be here if I wasn't," I replied shortly. "Let's just find out what there is." I pushed past her and walked in; Melinda gave me a startled look as she looked up, before glancing back at Olivia. I saw her shrug out of the corner of my eye, and nothing was said about it.

"What've you got for us?" Olivia spoke before I could open my mouth to do so; I cast an almost annoyed look at her and she pretended not to notice. Melinda glanced at me again before sighing and uncovering Makayla's body.

"I'm assuming you know that she tried to fight her attacker," she said, and both of us nodded.

"He drugged her," Melinda told us. "I was wrong about the time of death. Have you been by her school yet?"

"Yes," said Olivia, again speaking before I could. "We have. Her teachers said she left at around four o'clock."

"When I performed the autopsy, I found that she'd been drugged," said Melinda. "From what the defensive wounds tell me, she fought her attacker as best she could...he must have taken her straight from the school."

I'd figured as much. Olivia, on the other hand, looked startled, and I knew why: this completely changed the scope of our investigation. We'd already figured out that it wasn't someone the girl had known, but this changed everything.

"Then why did it look like she'd been dead for at least twelve hours when we'd found her?" I asked, before Olivia could say anything. Melinda sighed.

"There were signs that she'd been kept in a freezer," she said slowly. "That would have done it. From what I can tell you now, she'd only been dead only about nine hours."

"That would have put her death at around ten o'clock that night." I shook my head in disgust. "Bastard had four hours to do whatever he wanted to her."

Silence fell. I could tell that Olivia was staring at me, even though she was standing behind me. She'd seen me react to cases like this before…but never like this.

"Call us if you find anything else," she said quickly, before grabbing me by the arm and pulling me out before I said anything else. Melinda watched us go, a puzzled expression on her face as we disappeared from her view. Once we were outside again, Olivia turned so that she was facing me. Neither of us said anything for a long moment.

"I'm going to ask you one more time if there's anything wrong," she said, "And I want a straight answer. What's going on with you?"

"Nothing is going on with me," I told her. "And I really wish you'd stop asking. I'm just…I'm just having a hard time with this case, that's all. I'll get over it."  
"You'll get over it?" She gave me a skeptical look, one that told me in no uncertain terms that she didn't believe me. "We've had child cases before, Munch. Why is this one so different?"

"It's not," I replied. "It's not different. Hell, it's not anything. It's just a case that we're working, and it has nothing to do with anything else. Now can we please get out of here?"  
I didn't wait for her to answer. Instead, I grabbed the keys that she was holding and walked off without a word. A few minutes later, I heard her footsteps behind me.

"You know, I'm starting to rethink taking up with you on this," she remarked. "Maybe it'd be best if you just handed it…"  
"No," I said bluntly, cutting her off. "Forget it. I'm not handing it off to anyone; this is my case to work, and no one else's."

The startled look that crossed her face only served to prove that my words had come out more harshly than I'd meant them to, even if I didn't really think so. A ringing sound jolted us back to the present; we both looked down to see that I'd dropped the keys…my hands had started shaking while I'd snapped at her. She bent down to pick them up and eyed me intently.

"I'll drive," she said firmly, and instead of putting up an argument, I nodded, allowing her to take me by the arm again so that she could pull me towards the car.

"Liv…I'm sorry," I said, as we left to head back to the precinct. "I didn't mean to snap at you, I just…"

"I think you should go home," she said, cutting me off. I looked at the clock on the dashboard. It wasn't even 9:30 yet. I shook my head.

"I think you and I should go and get coffee," I replied. "I haven't had any yet. Might make things better."

"I doubt that," Olivia muttered. Her eyes were on the road before us and I had the feeling that she wasn't really talking to me, so I didn't say anything. Instead, I closed my eyes and sat there, wondering why it was taking so long to get to the precinct when I felt something being pushed at me. I opened my eyes to find that we were sitting in a parking lot and she was handing me a cup of coffee.

"Thanks," I said, and meant it. She offered up a faint smile and leaned back in her seat, looking over at me.

"You know I'm here if you need to talk about anything, right?" she asked, sounding almost uncertain. I looked at her over the rim of the cup and nodded.

"Yeah, I know," I said. And I really did. The only thing was that she was the _last_ one I wanted to talk to about any of this. I didn't really wan to talk to the other person I had in mind, either, but I doubted I was going to be left with a choice.

"We should head back to the precinct," I said finally. "Tell the others what we know, see if they've heard anything…"

Olivia nodded absently in agreement; we left the parking lot and she turned in the direction of the precinct. I said nothing, content to just stare out the window and watch the city passing us by. When we finally did get to the precinct, Olivia walked in before I'd even moved to get out of the car. I watched her go, grateful for the chance to be alone even though I didn't really want to be.

My cell phone rang a few minutes later. The number was a familiar one, and I sat there, listening to it, the sound muffled by my pocket as I debated on whether or not to answer it. It rang for a seventh time before I fished it out and flipped it open.

"So, Munch, were you gonna bother telling me about this, or were you just going to leave me hanging?"

"What, I don't even get a 'hello' now?" I asked in reply. A derisive snort sounded in my ear and I could just imagine Abby on the other side of the line, rolling her eyes.

"Don't start with me, all right?" she asked. "I go online to find out what's been going on in New York lately, and the first thing I see is your latest case."

I'd forgotten about that…the fact that Abby and Rose would both go online every now and then to read the latest news from New York. It only made sense that Abby would know about it…and it only made sense that she'd be pissed that I hadn't bothered to say anything.

"We don't even know if it's the same thing, so calm down," I told her. "There's only one victim."

"For now," Abby scoffed. "You wait. There'll be another one before the month is out."

"You don't know that," I said. "This could be completely unrelated, or it could be a copycat, or any number of things."

"Who's really going to take the time to look up something like this, huh?" Abby demanded. "Honestly, John, are you high?"  
That was among some of her favorite things to ask when she thought I was being an idiot. I rolled my eyes, got out of the car and headed into the precinct before replying.

"No," I said, "I'm not high. And for the record, I'm not drunk, either, so don't ask. I just think this is a coincidence." Abby snorted again.

"You can tell yourself that all you want," she said, "I don't think it's a coincidence. I also think that you're going to end up needing the old case files, so…"

"If we do, I'll let you know, all right? Don't feel like you have to drag yourself up here just to make sure I'm doing my job."

"Don't you snap at me. This isn't just your case, so don't act like it is, and I would appreciate if you'd let me in on what's happening."

"Why? You're in Baltimore, I'm in Manhattan. Two different jurisdictions the last time I looked."  
"Do you really think I give a care about that? You know as well as I do that Baltimore's not going to release any of their files unless they send one of their own up."

"They've already _got_ one of their own up…" I trailed off as I realized exactly what I was saying; Baltimore _didn't_ have one of theirs up here…I wasn't theirs anymore. Abby noticed my sudden silence and I could almost see her smirking.

"Yeah, smart one," she said, "Last time I checked, you weren't murder police anymore."  
"Once a murder police, always a murder police, you said it yourself," I retorted. "I'll let you know if we need any of the files, but until then…"

"I get the point," said Abby, "But don't think I'm not going to be calling you again."

I knew better than to think that. She and Rose had called at least once every day since I'd left Baltimore. If we hadn't been as close as we were, I'd have told them a while ago that the whole thing was annoying, but we were, and it wasn't. In fact, at that moment, I was glad that Abby had just decided to up and call me, because otherwise, I doubted I would have told her anything.

"I know you'll call again," I said finally, stopping just short of the squad room. Voices drifted out towards me, making it harder to hear, but Abby replied anyways.

"Try not to screw this one up, huh?" she asked, almost too quietly for me to hear. As tempted as I was to fire off a sarcastic retort, I didn't; she'd blamed herself for far too long about the last time, when really, it had been my fault, and I knew it, so I kept my mouth shut for a long moment before sighing.

"I won't," I said, "I promise. I'll talk to you later, all right?" Abby sighed.

"Yeah," she said, "I'll talk to you later." A click told me that she'd hung up, before it became evident that she was upset, but I wasn't stupid. I knew she was upset about this resurfacing. And I knew exactly why.

By the time I sat down in the squad room at my desk, I was already going mentally back in time.


	4. Chapter 3

A/N: This would be the flashback scene I was explaining in the last chapter. Anyways, to explain, the flashback scenes are going to go backwards. Abby is a prosecutor in Baltimore, which is why she's having a major part in the story...if you want to know what she and Munch are talking about at the end, then read the one-shot 'Secrets' and you'll get it. But for now just know that this one covers the 'trial' of the first 'Charm Bracelet murders' and the rest of the scenes will be going backwards from there. _

* * *

_

_I knew almost as soon as the judge started talking that this wasn't going to turn out the way we'd hoped. And that wasn't only because of the anxious look on Abby's face. The judge had been inclined to side with the defense on most of the motions that had been made, or so she'd told me. The only reason I was even there was because she'd practically forced me to come. I had the feeling it was only because she didn't want to be the one to tell Gee if things fell through, but I'd come anyway. It had already been said that our case was circumstantial, but now...now it looked as if things were definitely about to take a turn for the worse. _

_"Ms. Williams, these are quite serious allegations and I would like to think that our police did not resort to these tactics." The judge's voice broke into my thoughts and I looked forward; Abby cast a pained look in my direction before rising to her feet. _

_"Your Honor, this is a blatant attempt by the defense to delay this trial even further than it already has been. The police did none of what was stated here today and honestly, I'm appalled that it would even be suggested," she said. She was lying through her teeth, and both of us knew it. The defense seemed to know this, even if he had no direct evidence, and shook his head in disgust. _

_"If the allegations my client has made against the police are false, then why does he look the way he does?" he asked. "If anything here is blatant, it is the prosecution trying to excuse police brutality." _

_"As if your client doesn't deserve it, considering what he's done," Abby muttered sarcastically. _

_"What he's allegedly done," the defense retorted. "Admit it, Ms. Williams, the people have nothing without a confession, and the methods used to get it are anything but legal." _

_"I'm inclined to side with the defense on this one, Ms. Williams," the judge remarked finally, and I continued to stare forward, not bothering to hide the look of disbelief that was slowly crossing my face. Abby wasn't either. _

_"Your Honor, the defense has no evidence other than his client's word that the police have done anything to him. For all we know, the defendant's injuries could have been inflicted while he was in a holding cell." she said, this time not bothering to conceal her annoyance as she continued. "That confession was not obtained illegally." _

_"Says you," the defense retorted, "Were you present in the squad room to oversee the interrogation?" _

_"The murder police hardly need me to oversee their interrogations; they know what they're doing," Abby replied dryly. She sounded nervous. Hell, she even looked nervous, and that in itself was never a good thing. I'd seen that look on her face more than once before, and it usually resulted in something that neither of us wanted to hear. I didn't doubt that it was going to turn out that way this time, too. _

_"There is no direct evidence either way." The judge's voice startled me out of this reverie and I looked up again, just in time to see Abby rolling her eyes as the judge went on. "Given the circumstances, I find that I have no choice but to side with the defense on this issue. The confession is out." _

_Dead silence filled the courtroom, and it wasn't only because there was hardly anyone in there as it was. What seemed like an eternity passed before the defense finally spoke, careful not to look Abby in the eye as he did so. _

_"Your Honor, the people have no case against my client without that confession," he said, "I'd like to move for a mistrial." _

_"Motion granted." The judge continued on, but I didn't hear anything beyond those two words. Motion granted. That was the last thing I'd expected and more than likely the last thing that Abby had wanted to hear. Twelve murders in six months, and now the one responsible was going to walk. The defense smirked in Abby's direction as the judge walked out, having declared court adjourned for the day; she had her fists clenched so hard that her knuckles had turned white and I knew it was all she could do to keep from walking over and hitting him. The defendant, however, refused to look her in the eye, but rather turned to face me. _

_"You know, Detective...that last one...she wasn't like the others...she actually fought back." _

_I looked at Abby just in time to catch the warning look she shot me before stalking out of the courtroom; it was evident that she knew what I was thinking. And at that moment, I was halfway tempted to do exactly what Lewis and I had done in the interrogation room right there; screw whoever was watching. As it was, I remained where I was sitting, determined not to move and get myself into any more trouble than I was already in. The defendant walked past me, smirking, and had I thought of it then, I'd have more than likely found some way to trip him, but at the time, there was something else on my mind...and that something was Abby. For once, she'd taken off without me, when usually, she'd grab me and forcibly pull me after her as she was wont to do when she was frustrated. But this time, she hadn't. And I had the feeling I knew why. So when the defendant and his idiot attorney disappeared from view, I got to my feet and walked out of the courtroom. _

_As luck would have it, Howard and Felton had just showed up for another trial being handled by another State's Attorney. They both looked at me but said nothing; instead, they pointed in the direction that Abby had gone, and walked away. I went in the direction they'd pointed and soon found myself facing the ladies' room door. No one was around, so ignoring the fact that I'd be called on impropriety if I were seen, I walked in. The sound of sniffling greeted me. _

_"Go away. I don't want to hear it, all right?" Abby was sitting on the floor, under the sinks, with her knees tucked to her chest when I turned the corner and when she looked at me, I could see that her face was red as she continued. "The defense shouldn't have gotten that one." _

_"I know," I replied simply, moving to sit beside her. She sniffled and wiped at her face, looking away from me. _

_"That bastard is going to walk," she said, her voice shaking. "He's going to walk, and no child in Baltimore is going to be safe." _

_"We'll get him again, Abby," I said, "Guys like him...they'll stay clean for a while to keep suspicion away, but they'll slip." _

_"And if he doesn't? Then what?" Abby demanded, glaring at me. "He's learned stuff now. He knows what's going to get him caught, and he's not going to do it again." _

_"Why does this matter so much to you?" I asked. "If he's not caught here, he'll be caught somewhere else." _

_"You know why it matters." Abby's voice was low, almost to the point of anger, and I knew better than to push her. My suspicions had been right. I knew exactly why this was bothering her. _

_"No one's going to blame you for this," I started, but she cut me off, a bitter laugh escaping her as she shoved her hair of her face._

_"Says you," she said. "That man is not only a murderer, he's a pedophile, and I just let him walk." _

_"You're thinking about it again, aren't you?" I asked quietly, and she looked back at me for a long moment before nodding. _

_"Can't help it," she admitted, fiddling with the necklace she was wearing. "Every time I get a case like this, I see him. That last girl...she was the same age we were." _

_'We' in this sense meant her and Rose, and the last victim had been eight years old. Abby leaned against me, resting her head on my shoulder as she closed her eyes. _

_"It's just like letting him go all over again," she said, and silence fell. For once, I couldn't think of anything to say to her. I knew she probably remembered that night more clearly than I did, forget the fact that it was twenty-three years ago. _

_"You couldn't have done anything then, and you couldn't have done anything now," I told her finally. "None of it was your fault." _

_"I still feel like it was...back then, I mean. He only went after Rose because she was afraid of him...he knew she wasn't going to tell." Abby took a shuddering breath and went on. "God, if I hadn't walked in that night..." _

_I shifted uncomfortably, having no desire to listen to any of this; Abby noticed and stopped. _

_"You know, you're the only other person who knows about it," she remarked finally. _

_"Those girls know they had someone fighting for them," I told her. She looked up at me and wiped at her eyes again, turning so that her face was hidden in my shirt. _

_"Then why does it feel like I haven't done anything?" _

_The question startled me. But I knew what she was getting at. That night had been the driving force behind her becoming a State's Attorney...the reason Rose was so protective of Liana and Michelle. And I knew that it was why every time a guy like the one we'd just encountered got a walk, she didn't talk or look at anyone for days afterwards...not even me. _

_But as we sat there in silence, I realized that anything that I was feeling was nothing compared to what she went through every time this happened...my anger was nothing compared to her silent pain. We sat there in silence for a long while after the last word left her mouth, wondering what was going to happen now that the man we'd been trying to nail for so long had been granted his freedom. _


	5. Chapter 4

A/N: I think there's going to be another flashback scene after this, so bear with me, ok? I've decided that when I end a chapter that's going to lead to a flashback scene, the ending of the preceding chapter is going to be what the scene consists of, so the next flashback is the beginning of the first round of cases. And now that I've thoroughly confused you, I shall go.

* * *

I'd switched the television on more to fill the silence than anything else. I wasn't even really watching it; rather, I was flipping channels, not really paying attention, either way. Abby hadn't called back at all since the first time she had, but the memory of the first trials lingered. And it hurt. We still hadn't gotten anywhere on Makayla Lawrence's case. The captain had shoved it to the back burner after four days without getting any leads. We'd all then been put on the next high-profile case...some tourist. I could have cared less. But that was probably because I hadn't really been sleeping lately. Every time I closed my eyes, I could see Makayla lying there in front of the playground, almost like an offering. I wondered what she'd been like when she was still alive. And as I was contemplating this, the phone rang. A cold feeling settled over me, but I answered it anyway.

"There's been another murder." Olivia's voice was breathless, as if she'd been running, and she continued. "Same M.O."

I sat there in silence for a full two minutes, struggling against the sudden, mad desire to cry ,before finally regaining my nerve and speaking.

"Where...where are you?" I asked. Not that I really wanted to know. She could handle this one with Elliot, or even with Fin, for all I cared, one murder was enough for me. But I rose to my feet anyway. Call me a glutton for punishment if you want; I didn't want to handle this myself, but I didn't want anyone else doing it, either.

"Another park." She rattled off a specific name, and I listened, numb. This time, I was the one who hung up first, probably startling her, since I hadn't even bothered to say goodbye. I hoped she understood, even though I knew I was going to get an earful for it once I got to where she was.

Sure enough, she looked annoyed when she finally saw me, about half an hour later. It had started raining by the time I showed up; neither of us had thought to bring an umbrella or anything else to shield us, not having expected it, so we stood there, letting ourselves get soaked. CSU didn't look too happy. I couldn't blame them, even though I knew without seeing the body that this was the same sort of case, and they wouldn't have found anything but a letter, anyway.

Melinda was bent over the sheet-covered body when we crossed the tapes, flashing our shields at the uniforms that had moved forward to make us go away. Even with the sheet there, I could tell that the body was smaller than Makayla's had been...younger.

"She was six," Melinda said heavily, and my worst fears were immediately confirmed. It had been like this the first time. And if I was right and this wasn't a copycat, as I'd told Abby, none of the victims would ever be close in age.

"Cause of death?" Olivia asked, without looking at me.

"Gunshot wound," Melinda replied, figuring that it would bother all of us less if she got it out quickly. "There are at least a hundred smaller cuts, probably from a knife, but I can't tell in this light...I'll know more when I perform the autopsy..." She trailed off then, and none of us said anything. What seemed like an eternity passed before Melinda motioned to her assistants and they left, taking the body with them.

"I'm assuming CSU hasn't found anything yet." I said. Olivia shook her head, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the rain as she looked up at me.

"Nothing," she said. "This...you don't think it's the same guy, do you?" Had the question been coming from anyone else, particularly from someone who'd been there the first time around, it would have been incredibly stupid, but she hadn't been and so I hesitated, debating on whether or not to lie about it. Finally, I nodded.

"Yeah," I said, "I do." It couldn't have been anyone else. Ever since the first round, nothing like this had ever crossed my path. It was almost as if no one was stupid enough to try and imitate what was still considered to be the worst string of murders Baltimore had ever seen. And that was saying something...Baltimore wasn't referred to as 'the city that bleeds' for nothing.

"Why do I have the feeling that there's something you're not telling me?" Olivia asked. Startled, I looked over at her before sighing.

"Liv...if I knew anything, you would be the first to know." I said. It wasn't exactly true, but it wasn't a lie, either. I'd tell her if anything popped up...she just wouldn't be the first one.

"There's no one here," Olivia remarked finally, motioning to the area outside of the crime scene tape. I looked, and sure enough, she was right. No one was there. In fact, other than CSU, we were the only ones left, and that hardly counted.

"You think we should help them?" I asked, motioning to the technicians. "There aren't that many of them here."

"Considering that it's..." Olivia paused to look at her watch and then looked at me again. "2:49 in the morning, I'm not surprised." But even as she spoke, she was moving to see what she could do. I followed. The technicians looked up upon hearing us through the rain, startled looks crossing their faces.

"Looks like you're shorthanded," said Olivia, and the one closest to us nodded.

"We are," he said. "You mind giving us a hand?" Olivia glanced back towards me; I shook my head, already reaching into my pocket for the gloves I knew were there. One of the other techs handed Olivia her own set, and she put them on before looking at me again. We walked off, then, leaving the techs to the task in front of them.

"Where should we look first?" Olivia asked, and then, "Never mind. We'll split up."

She walked away from me, then, and I remained where I was, frozen in place and watching her go. The minute she disappeared, my thoughts came sliding back into focus, going at what seemed to be a million miles a minute The last note we'd found had been on the underside of one of the slides. But we were in a different park now. That hadn't changed from the last time. Suddenly, I knew exactly where to look for the next note.

Sure enough, when I reached the monkey bars all the way on the other side of the playground, there was a plastic bag stuck to one of the rungs, a white envelope clearly visible inside of it. No one was looking in my direction. Even if they had, it would have been near to impossible to see me through the rain. With this in mind, I took the plastic bag and stowed it away in my coat, to read later.

Fifteen minutes later, Olivia came towards me, looking more than slightly disgruntled about the whole situation.

"Nothing," she told me. "CSU hasn't found anything, either...not that they could with all this damned rain. What about you?"

I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak, for fear that if I did, I'd tell her about the letter. A guilty feeling started inside me as we walked back towards the cars that had brought us to the scene; when we reached them, I turned to face her.

"You heading to the precinct?" I asked. Olivia eyed me for a moment before nodding.

"You're not," she told me, in no uncertain terms. "Go home and sleep, Munch. You look like hell."

She hadn't seen anything, yet. But I had the feeling that she would, soon, regardless of whether or not I slept. Even so, I was still glad that she'd told me to go home: at the moment, I wanted nothing more than to do just that...if only to find out what was in the envelope this time around.

By the time I finally got home, it was almost three-thirty. I'd left the television on; the voice of someone in an infomercial greeted me; I looked towards the screen, blankly, not really seeing anything. I'd lost count of how many times my hands had started shaking without my noticing, but they were doing it again as I drew the plastic bag out from where I'd stowed it.

The envelope had my name on it, addressing me as if I were still one of Baltimore's. Oddly enough, it didn't annoy me like it normally might have. Pulling open the bag, I drew the envelope out and stared at it for a long while. As much as I hated to admit it, even to myself, I was afraid of finding out what was inside. Irritation overcame the fear, more at myself than at anything else, and I opened the envelope. Several strands of red hair fell out, along with a note.

_"So...you do remember. I was wondering whether or not I should have left this in a more secluded place, considering that someone other than yourself might have found it. I must admit that I was going on the assumption that no one here in this new unit of yours knows about the first round of murders. Looks like I was right. And it looks like you've accepted the challenge this time around as well. I have to say, Detective, I admire your determination. Now all you have to do is see if you can stop me again before too many murders are committed. The last time I looked, you still had the blood of twelve other little girls on your hand. Oh, wait. My mistake. There are fourteen of them now." _

As soon as I finished reading it, my first thought was that I wanted to tear the damn thing into pieces and leave it for someone else to handle. Two things kept me from doing so. One of them was the fact that the note was evidence, even if no one else knew about this second one. The second was the fact that my tearing it to pieces would signify that the perp had gotten to me this time, like he had last time.

The sound of the phone ringing jolted me out of my thoughts and I reached for it, hoping against hope that it wasn't Olivia. Luckily, it wasn't.

"Have you heard anything else?" Abby's voice was almost a comfort, even if I didn't really want to hear from her, either.

"There's been another murder," I said heavily. "The victim was six...there was...there was another charm."

I knew then that she was fighting to keep from giving me the classic 'I told you so' lecture, so I waited. Surprisingly enough, she managed not to. Instead, she sighed and when she spoke, she sounded close to tears.

"Do you know who she is yet?" she asked. I shook my head, and then remembered that she couldn't see me.

"No," I said. "We don't. There wasn't any ID left with the body this time around." I didn't need to add that we'd probably find it later, at the next crime scene, if there was one. She already knew that.

"Any leads on the first case yet?" she asked.

"You know I'd have called if there had been," I replied. "We're doing everything we can up here, Abby."

"I know," said Abby. "I just...it's not that I don't think you're going to nail the guy, it's just..."

She trailed off then, but I knew what it was. I also had the feeling that we were going to end up needing her sooner than I'd thought we were going to.

"Are you handling any cases right now?" I asked.

"No...why?" she asked in reply. "You thinking you're going to need the old files sometime soon."  
"Yes," I replied. "I think it might help establish a pattern, if our guy hasn't already decided he wants to try something new."

"Fine," said Abby, "Let me know when you need the files; I'll see what I can do to get them to you."

"I will," I said. Silence fell and lingered. I waited for her to say something else, and when she didn't, I went on. "We'll get him this time, Abby."

"I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Call you tomorrow?"

"You've got my number." We waited for exactly three seconds and then hung up at the same time, some random 'tradition' of sorts that we'd started a long time ago. I set the phone back down on the receiver and stared blankly at the television screen for a long while, waiting for sleep to come. What seemed like forever passed before it finally did.

Not that it really helped. As soon as my eyes closed, I found myself back in Baltimore, a rookie who'd just caught a red-ball that no one in the department knew what to do with.


	6. Chapter 5

A/N: Sorry about the updated chapter...screwed up a line and had to fix it, so here you have it.

* * *

Danielle Morrison's murder was the cause of the not-so-unexpected media frenzy that struck about a week later. Someone had managed to connect it to Makayla Lawrence's murder after we'd finally gotten an ID and now that was all people on the news and radio could talk bout.

"...rumor has it that as of yet, the Manhattan Special Victims Unit has no leads on either of the murders..."

"Turn that the hell off," I said loudly, not bothering to look up from the crime scene photos on my desk, and there was silence.

'They're right, you know," Elliot remarked, "We _don't_ have any leads."

"Maybe _you_ don't," I muttered. He looked over at me, making that annoying clicking sound with the pen in his hand.

"You holding back on us?" he asked. I glared at him.

"Why do you care?" I asked. "You're not even...oh, wait a minute. The victims were the same ages your kids _used_ to be."

I'd crossed the line with that one, and I knew it. I was half-expecting retaliation, but also knew that it wouldn't come. Not with the captain's office door wide open. The fact that Elliot was glaring over at me meant nothing; if he thought I'd be intimidated, he was wrong.

"Why do _you_ care?" he asked finally. "You're the one that shouldn't give a damn...your kid's not even here for you to worry about."

"That's beside the point," Olivia said, before I could retort. She cast her partner a warning look before turning back to her own copies of the crime scene photos. Footsteps caught my attention; I looked up, expecting to see a member of the brass or even IAB. Instead, I found myself looking at a girl no older than eleven.

"Are you the cops investigating Ellie's murder?" she asked, uncertainly. Olivia got to her feet and nodded.

"We are," she said, "What's your name?" The girl looked towards her for a moment before answering.

"Kayla McIntire," she replied. "Ellie is...well, was...my reading buddy at school."

Well. That was certainly something. As of that moment, Kayla was the only one who had come forward on either of the murders. Olivia motioned to me and I followed the both of them into the empty interview room. The door closed behind me and the sound echoed. I remained standing. Kayla sat on one side of the table; Olivia sat on the other.

"Why' d you come?" she asked. Suddenly, Kayla looked upset; she started fiddling with the loose strands of hair that had fallen into her eyes.

'Heard about Ellie being killed on the news this morning," she said. "Skipped school and hopped the subway to here. There...there was something Ellie said a couple of weeks ago that I thought might help."

Hell, at this point, anything would help. I shifted in my position, avoiding looking at either Kayla or Olivia as I spoke.

"What was that?" I asked. Kayla looked over at me, leaving me with no choice but to look at her.

"Something about a guy," she said faintly. "She said she was afraid to walk home alone from school even though her house was only two blocks away, so I walked with her."

"Did you ever see him?" Olivia asked, and when Kayla nodded, I asked the next question.

"Could you describe him?" Kayla nodded again and before she could start, Olivia spoke again.

"Do your parents know you're here?" she asked. No answer. I fished my cell phone out of my pocket, leaned forward and pushed it across the table.

"You should call them, let them know where you are," I said. "We'll need you to talk to a sketch artist."

"What's that?" Kayla asked, glancing at me warily. Olivia looked at me as well, and I could tell she was trying not to laugh as she answered.

"Someone who will draw the suspect while you give him a description," she said. "It shouldn't take too long."

"Oh." Kayla picked up the cell phone and flipped it open before dialing a number and waiting. A woman's voice could be heard a few seconds later, and Kayla rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, Mom," she said, "I know I'm not at school." A pause, and then, "Why? Because I'm talking to the cops, that's why."

Olivia and I exchanged glances as the conversation suddenly turned into an argument; finally, Kayla flipped the phone shut, without saying goodbye, and looked at us, shaking her head.

"Are things between you and your mom always like that?" Olivia asked carefully. Kayla eyed her for a long while before deciding that she hadn't meant anything by it and shook her head.

"Nah," she replied. "We're usually cool. She was just kinda freaked out because the school called and told her I wasn't there, and my telling her I was talking to you guys didn't really help. She thought I'd been arrested or something."

"I know," I said dryly, "We heard." Olivia cast a warning look in my direction before rising to her feet and we moved to lead Kayla out of the interview room. She walked ahead of us into the squad room; Olivia stopped me just before I could follow.

"That was uncalled for," she told me in an undertone. "You think she wanted us to hear that?"

Did I _think_ Kayla had wanted us to hear that? Hell, no. I told her as much and she glared at me.

"You keep acting like this and I'm going to ask for you to be taken off this case," she said. "I don't know what's gotten into you, but it needs to go away. You're starting to remind me of Elliot."

Silence fell. Olivia still hadn't let go of my arm, so I pulled away, casting an irritated look at her.

"That's none of your business," I started, but she cut me off.

"The hell it's not," she retorted. "I don't _know_ what it is, I don't _care_ what it is, but you do need to get over it."

"Don't tell me what I do and do not have to get over," I shot back, "You don't know a damn thing about any of this, so why don't you go back to working with your partner and leave this for me to handle?"

She looked at me then as if I'd smacked her, but I was too annoyed to take back what I'd just said, and instead of apologizing, I went on.

"I didn't ask for your help on this, and I don't need it, either, Olivia, nor do I need you hovering around, telling me how to work my own damn case." By this time, silence had fallen in the squad room; I could tell by the fact that my voice was carrying. Over Olivia's shoulder, I could see Elliot; the look on his face was almost murderous, as if he were wondering how I had the nerve to talk to her that way. As tempted as I was to tell him to shove off, I didn't. Instead, I pushed past Olivia and left the squad room, and then the precinct.

Footsteps behind me told me that she'd followed. I turned, half-ready to yell at her for coming after me, _again,_ but it wasn't her.

"Before you say anything, I took time off, and I brought the old files with me." Abby shoved a number of folders into my arms before I could ask her what she was doing, and shifted her arms to keep the ones she was still holding from falling.

"Abby, what the hell are you doing here?" I asked. "I told you I'd call if I needed these..." She cut me off, as if she hadn't heard me.

"Bayliss and Howard are coming up," she said quickly, "I...I kinda told them what was going on."

"You _what_?" I dropped the folders she'd just shoved at me and stared at her in disbelief, before shaking my head. "Rose has no idea what you're up to, does she?" Abby shook her head.

"No," she said. "I couldn't...I couldn't tell her, ok? I didn't want her to know about it in case this bastard gets off again."

"I told you we don't even know if it's the same guy. For God's sake, Abby, this could be something completely unrelated..." I said.

"Two murders in two weeks?" Abby demanded, nearly dropping her own files as I bent down to retrieve the ones that had fallen. "I'll be damned if it's completely unrelated."

I'd expected nothing less. In fact, I'd been wondering what she was going to do, and now that I knew, I couldn't help but feel relieved that she had come. It'd probably make things a lot easier on the rest of the squad, especially when my former colleagues showed up.

"You need to call Rose," I said finally, rising to my feet. "Knowing her, she's probably freaking out. When did you leave Baltimore?"

"Before she woke up," Abby replied. "'Bout 6:30." I looked at my watch. It was now nearly ten o'clock.

"You eat anything yet?" I asked. Abby shook her head again.

"Didn't have time," she said. "You know me, I probably would have set the smoke alarms off trying to make something and Rose would've woken up."

"So basically, you just left her hanging because you thought she'd stop you from coming," I said, reaching into my pocket for my keys. "Honestly, Abby, when has she ever been able to stop you from doing something?"

"Never, really, but that's beside the point," said Abby, walking after me as I headed to where my car was. "The point is that these New York people don't know how to..." I cut her off.

"It's not that they don't know how to, Abby," I said. "It's that _I_ don't know how to...well, I do, but I..." I trailed off and sighed. She eyed me for a long moment before pulling the passenger's side door open and getting in, motioning for me to get in as well, so I did.

"You're not the only one," she said. "You should have seen Kay when I told her what was happening up here. I thought she was going to faint right there in the squad room."

That was definitely a surprise. Out of the few lady cops that I actually had somewhat of a relationship with, Kay was the last one I'd expected to hear that about. I glanced at Abby as we left the parking lot and sighed again.

"Funny, I never got the impression that she really cared either way," I remarked. Abby swatted at me.

"Those murders were some of the worst any of you had ever seen," she said quietly. "Of course she cared."

"What did Bayliss do?" I asked, for some reason wanting to change the subject. "He wasn't there the first time around..."

"I know, but Meldrick just caught a red-ball and he couldn't leave." said Abby. "He...well, he seemed to take a cue from Kay's reaction, but when she left, he asked me what the deal was."

"What'd you tell him?" I asked. Abby motioned to the files that I'd shoved off into her lap.

"Showed him these," she said, "He's not exactly a rookie anymore, but I really thought he was going to be sick."

I decided at this point to leave out the fact that upon reading the note from Danielle's crime scene, I myself had nearly been sick. The reason for this was simple: if Abby _did_ decide to call Rose and tell her about it, she wouldn't have to think twice about getting me pulled. She'd come close to doing the same last time and I had no doubts that she'd do it again this time.

"So they're coming up here?" I asked. "How'd they manage to get that approved?"

"I don't know, and I don't want to know," said Abby, quoting something I'd heard Meldrick say many times before. "All I needed to know was that they'd be able to come up here."

"When exactly are they going to be here?" I asked. Two murders had already been committed this month. I wondered if there were going to be any more, or if it was going to follow the same pattern as the first round. And then my cell phone rang.

"You going to answer that, or what?" Abby asked. I glanced at her as I turned again, and shook my head.

"You do it, I'm driving," I replied. She rolled her eyes, but picked it up and flipped it open.

"Hello?" Olivia's voice floated in my direction, sounding confused; I bit back the impulse to laugh as Abby scowled.

"This is Assistant State's Attorney Abby Williams," she said, obviously in reply to whatever Olivia had said. "Who is _this_?" This time, I laughed, and held my hand out.

"Abby...Abby, give me the phone, huh?" I said. Abby scowled again at the device in her hands before handing it over.

"Who was that?" Olivia demanded, and I cast an amused look at Abby before replying.

"Friend of mine from Baltimore," I said vaguely. "What do you want now?" Abby swatted at me again, catching me in the shoulder; I gave her a look, silently thankful that we'd come to another stoplight.

"Don't be rude," she told me. It was something I'd heard from Rose more often than not, and I rolled my eyes as Olivia answered.

"There's been another murder," she said. "Think you can manage to drag yourself down here?"

"Last time I checked, I was perfectly capable of driving," I said sarcastically. "Where are you this time?" She rattled off an address and instead of turning left like I'd originally planned, I went straight as I flipped the phone shut.

"I'd like to know where she gets off asking me who I am like that," Abby remarked, opening the first of the files still residing in her lap.

"That's just Olivia," I said. "I don't think she was expecting a woman to be answering my phone."  
"Doesn't really say a lot for you, now does it?"

"If I might remind you, I happen to be married, and happily so, for once."

"Oh, yeah...guess I'm just used to you being single all the time. Where are we going?"

"Crime scene. There's been a third murder."


	7. Chapter 6

A/N: Ok, I know I said I was going to do a flashback scene a while back, and I might do one after a few more regular chapters, but right now, it's touch and go. I might just keep it to one scene, that one being the one I've already done, so yeah. And I'm glad because I've finally gotten ch. 6 done, so here goes nothing...

* * *

A press conference was held about three days after the third murder. The sketch made from the information that Kayla McIntire had given us was made known to the public, which, if you asked me, wasn't a great idea. Our unit knew better than anyone that appearances could and often did change. The fact that we were starting to grow somewhat desperate for leads was really the only reason we'd released the sketch. But I still couldn't help thinking that by releasing it, we'd just screwed ourselves over. 

"There, you see?" Abby asked, shaking her head in disgust at the television screen as the evening news came on. "Doesn't even look like him."

"Looks change, Abby," I said dryly, "You can't tell me you expected him to look the same."

"Why not? You do."

"Name one person you and I both know that looks the same as they did five years ago."

"Never mind."

"That's what I thought." Abby rolled her eyes and turned the volume on the television screen slightly up, expecting me to continue, but I didn't. Instead, I moved to sit beside her and sighed.

"This is getting ridiculous," I remarked. "We had leads by this point the first time."

"Tell me about it," said Abby, "Kinda makes you glad the other two are coming, doesn't it?"

"Honestly, I'd feel better if it were Kay and Meldrick, but yes, it does." Silence fell. The subject on the evening news changed and Abby switched it off.

"You never did answer me when I asked when they'd be here," I said.

"Tomorrow; I talked to Kay this morning," said Abby, "And for the record, we're not staying here."

"Why not?" I asked. "We've got room, Kai's at school back home…"

"Yeah, but it's the middle of the school year here, and I highly doubt Rowan's gonna want three cops and a State's Attorney turning this place into a makeshift squad room."

"Good point." I looked at the file that Abby had open on the coffee table in front of us. Beverley Wilkins smiled up at me, a forever nine-year-old face that would have been thirty-three two weeks ago. Abby noticed me looking and sighed.

"He'll slip," she said, probably more to convince herself than to convince me, "He did last time, and he will this time."

Silence fell again and lingered. The sound of a key turning in the front lock made us jump; a few seconds later, Rowan came into view.

"Anything yet?" she asked. Abby shook her head; I was too busy looking through Beverley's file again to answer. Footsteps told me that both women had gone towards the kitchen, but I ignored them. Abby wasn't really going to be needed until this thing went to trial…if it went to trial, and she knew it as well as I did. I didn't really see the point of her being there just yet, other than the fact that she'd somehow managed to get files that had been put away for God only knew how long. It was Kay and Meldrick that I really needed at the moment, the two of them and Bolander, but it was Kay and Tim that I was getting. Abby and I had both learned a while ago to keep our mouths shut when it came to this sort of thing, so I would…so long as the rest of the unit didn't give me hell about it. As of right then, Olivia was the only one that knew Abby had come; I'd asked her not to mention it to the other two and as far as I knew, she still hadn't.

Hiding Kay and Tim's appearance, however, was going to be another story. It hit me then as Rowan and Abby's conversation started floating towards me that if it was going to be the three of us alone handling the case, I was going to have to talk to the captain. With this in mind, I closed Beverley's file and reached for my coat.

"Where are you going now?" Rowan asked, looking up in time to see me heading towards the entryway.

"Precinct," I replied, without looking back at her, "I'll be back in a while."

* * *

Not surprisingly, everyone was still there when I walked in. I looked at my watch; it was nearing eight o'clock. I'd hoped they would all be gone, so they wouldn't hear what I was about to do, but since they weren't, there was a chance that they'd hear. 

"Nice to see you've decided to grace us with your presence again," Olivia said dryly, without looking up. I glanced in her direction, taking off my coat and putting it on my chair.

"Forgot something," I said vaguely, bending down to open one of my desk drawers to make it look convincing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her look up, a skeptical expression on her face.

"Funny, I didn't think you ever forgot anything," she said. I rolled my eyes.

"I don't need your sarcasm, all right?" I asked. "I just forgot something in my desk, and..." I pulled out a notepad that I knew was empty, and held it out in her direction. She gave me a look.

"You know, I could always tell the captain that you're up to something," she remarked. "Specifically bringing people from Baltimore up to work this with you."

"There is _one_ person from Baltimore here, and she's not working anything. She's just an old friend of mine."

"A friend who happens to be a prosecutor. Is there something you're not telling us?"

"There's nothing I'm not telling you. All of you know everything I do, and I already said you'd be the first to know if something came up." The skeptical look still hadn't left Olivia's face, but this time, I ignored it and walked towards the captain's office. The door was open slightly; I got there just in time to see him hanging up the phone. A split second later, he noticed me.

"I need to talk to you," he said. "Come in here and close the door." I did so, and the sound of the door closing echoed behind me. Silence fell, and I couldn't help but wonder whether or not Olivia had said something. Even if she hadn't, Elliot or Fin probably had; the whole unit had noticed this sudden 'change' in me. For some reason, I couldn't fault them for being worried, if they even were, but at the same time, it was annoying.

"What'd you need to talk to me about?" I asked.

"Why is there a prosecutor here that I didn't know about?" Surprisingly enough, I wasn't startled by the question; rather, I was that much more irritated at Olivia.

"I didn't know she was here, either, until a few days ago," I replied, "And I had nothing to do with it."

"Nothing to do with a prosecutor coming up from Baltimore right when we're working one of the biggest cases we've had in a while?"

"Captain, I can honestly tell you that I didn't know ASA Williams was coming until she showed up. The fact that she's from Baltimore isn't exactly relevant."

I knew from the look that crossed Cragen's face after I said this that I was skating on thin ice, yet again. I cared, but then, I didn't. I'd come for a reason, and I wasn't leaving until I'd gotten it over with.

"I need you to take the rest of the unit off this case," I said, figuring that if I said it quickly, things wouldn't be as bad. Cragen eyed me for a long moment before speaking.

"You want to tell me why?" he asked. I didn't, but it wasn't as if I actually had a choice, so I sighed and leaned back against the office door.

"I need to know that none of this is going to leave here," I said slowly, and when he nodded, I went on.

"This case...it's happened before. In Baltimore. That's what ASA Williams is doing here...she was the prosecutor the first time around. I...I was the primary detective."

"You're telling me that you've done this before?" Cragen looked up from the paperwork that had been sitting on his desk, a startled look crossing his face. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"What was I supposed to say?" I asked, fighting to control my sudden frustration. "You think I want the others knowing that the only reason we're doing this now is because I couldn't put the guy away the first time?"

"Why should I pull them?" Cragen asked in reply. "ASA Williams can't help you with this investigation..."

"No, but she can help Casey when we bring this to trial..._if_ we bring this to trial." I paused for a moment, more to gather my nerve than anything else, and then continued. "She told two of my former colleagues about what's going on up here...they'll be here tomorrow."

"That would explain why I just got off the phone with your old department." Cragen leaned back in his seat and sighed, shaking his head in my direction. "I'm assuming that at least one of them was with you the first time?"  
"Kay Howard was," I replied. "Tim Bayliss didn't come along until a few years later, but he's been filled in on everything."

"And you think the three of you will be able to take this guy down?"

"I couldn't say one way or another. All I can tell you is that it might be easier to break this case if people that have handled it before are handling it again."

Silence fell after this, and I waited. What seemed like forever passed before Cragen finally spoke again.

"Are they all still out there?" he asked, motioning out towards the squad room. I nodded wordlessly, and he continued.

"Fine," he said, "I'll talk to them. But it's on you to explain all of this to them. I don't think they're going to take too well to being replaced."

"No one ever is," I said, feeling more relieved than anything else. "I'll explain it all to them."

"When exactly were you planning on having them pulled off of this?" Cragen asked, rising to his feet. I pulled the office door open and the both of us walked into the squad room. Silence fell almost instantly; Elliot, Olivia and Fin all looked in my direction, and I fought the desire to look away, knowing they were going to give me hell for what was about to happen.

"As of this moment, all of you are off of the Charm Bracelet cases except for Munch." I noticed that as Cragen spoke, he didn't dare look any of them in the eye, and it was just as well; they all looked as if they were half-ready to kill the both of us.

"Why?" Olivia demanded, an irritated look crossing her face as she looked at me. "Does he think he's going to close this himself?"

"I'll thank you not to talk about me like I'm not in the damn squad room," I snapped, "I asked for you all to be taken off this case for a reason." Cragen glanced at me for a brief moment before going to answer the phone in his office as it went off again. The door slammed after him, leaving me to face the squad.

"Mind telling us what that reason is?" Elliot asked sarcastically. I gave him an annoyed look, but nodded.

"I've done this before," I said, and before I could continue, Fin cut me off.

"What do you mean, you've done this before?" he demanded. "You know who this guy is?"

"Yes," I said. "We...we almost had him the first time I did this, but something...something got him a walk." Olivia shook her head, smirking.  
"I can't believe you," she said. "We could've had this bastard nailed by now. Why the hell didn't you tell us before this?"

"Because I didn't want to," I retorted. "I didn't think I'd ever have to see this again, but now that we are..." This time, it was Elliot who cut me off.

"You're a real piece of work, you know that?" he asked. "First you hold back about this, and now you're asking for us to be taken off this case?"

"I told you there was a reason for it, and I'm giving you that reason," I shot back. "I don't need your help on this."

"You don't _want_ our help on this," said Fin. "You go at this alone, what's to say you're not gonna end up dead?"

"I'm not going in alone." Here, I hesitated. It was obvious that the others were already pissed off at me; the last thing I wanted was to make it worse. Then again, at this point, I really didn't give a damn what they thought. They could think whatever they wanted; it wasn't going to change anything.

"What do you mean, you're not going in alone?" Olivia asked. "That prosecutor's not going to be able to help you with this..."

"You're right," I said, "She's not, and I don't expect her to, though knowing her, she probably will. Two former colleagues of mine are coming up."

"That's great," Elliot said dryly. "Nice to know you trust them more than you trust us."

"More than I trust _you,_ maybe," I muttered sarcastically. "I know you all probably hate me for this, but I don't have a choice..."

"You had a choice, and you made your decision," Olivia said icily, looking back down at her paperwork. "You want us off the case, fine. We are, per Cragen's orders. But if you ask me, you should have at least had the decency to tell us to our faces that you wanted us gone, instead of going behind our backs."

There was a reason I hadn't wanted to tell any of them about Kay and Tim coming up...a reason why I'd regretted letting Abby answer my cell phone the day we got the news about the third murder. Had I known that the others were going to react the way they just had, I'd have taken _myself_ off the case, but the truth was that I already felt like enough of a failure as it was. Taking myself off was really the _last_ thing I needed to do.

When no one else said anything, I walked over to my desk, grabbed my coat and walked out of the squad room without looking back or saying anything. I made it halfway towards the precinct's exit when I heard footsteps behind me, and turned to find that Fin had walked out after me.

"What the hell do you want now?" I asked. "Thought you said your piece back there."

"You have no idea what you're getting yourself into, do you?" he asked in reply, choosing to ignore my remark .

"No," I admitted, sighing. "I don't. And I really don't want to. Things are already bad enough as it is."

"What happened the first time?" Fin asked. "Why couldn't you put him away then?"

"His attorney claimed we'd coerced his confession," I said vaguely, hoping that I wouldn't be pressed further, but the look Fin was giving me told me that wasn't a good enough answer.

"We were in the interrogation room," I said heavily. "Me, our guy, and the detective who was working the case with me. I don't know how long we were in there, but...basically what happened is that we beat a confession out of him, and it got thrown out before the trial could even start."

"Who's that prosecutor Olivia was talking about?" Fin asked in reply. I sighed, turning to face him as we reached the front of the precinct.

"Abby Williams," I said. "I've known her since I was a kid...one of the reasons she dragged herself up here when she found out what was going on. She...she was the prosecutor the first time around. Tried every legal trick she knew to keep that confession in, but none of it worked. He walked...left Baltimore...we didn't have any choice but to move on."

"So that's why you're working with them instead of us," said Fin, more of a question than the statement it sounded like. I nodded.

"When we went to arrest him the first time, he drew on us. Three of us were there...me, Kay Howard and Meldrick Lewis. Meldrick and I both ended up getting shot."

"That might happen again."

"I know. But this guy...he's more likely to shoot you, Olivia and Elliot because he's never dealt with you before. I don't want that to happen."

"When are those Baltimore cops supposed to get here?"

"Tomorrow." The precinct doors were pushed open suddenly; Fin and I moved backwards as two uniforms walked in, completely soaked by the rain. We waited until they disappeared before continuing our conversation.

"You guys need anything, just ask," said Fin. "I don't care what Benson and Stabler have to say about it, you're still my partner."

Silence fell between us then, which was odd...usually, our conversations ended up in some sort of argument. This time, it was different. Now I knew exactly why he'd sounded so pissed off back in the squad room, and I couldn't blame him for it, even though I'd have given him hell if it were any other situation. I looked at him then before pushing the precinct doors open again and moving to walk out into the oncoming storm.

"Thanks," I said quietly, starting to walk backwards, "You have no idea how much that means right now."


	8. Chapter 7

A/N: Still haven't decided where the next flashback scene is going to go. It's probably going to end up being a dream sequence, so bear with me for now...and LSM...sorry you were confused in the last chapter. I should've put an A/N in there...and this one is for you...

* * *

News of the fourth murder came the minute Kay and Tim showed up at the precinct, which, ironically enough, happened to be the last day of the month.

"Four murders in one month." Kay shook her head in disgust as she crossed the tape; Tim and I followed as she continued. "If this is the same guy, he's escalating."

"You think?" I asked dryly. "You heard that bastard the last time around, 'They're only children. Their parents can certainly always have more…'."

"He said that?" Tim asked, and I nodded, starting to continue, but Kay cut me off.

"We don't even know if it's him, as I'm sure Abby's already told you," she said. Suddenly, I remembered the note from Danielle's crime scene; it was still in my coat pocket. I pulled it out and handed it to her.

"You read that and tell me it's not the same son of a bitch we almost had last time," I said. Kay took it and started to read; I motioned for Tim to follow me and we walked over to where Melinda was, bent over our latest victim's body.

"She's sixteen," she told us, "CSU found an ID." I pulled on a set of gloves as she handed a keychain up to me; on it was a school ID card. Our latest victim's name was Claire Fisher.

"Cause of death?" I asked. Melinda glanced at me for a brief moment before sighing.

"Blunt force trauma," she said. "Someone hit her over the head."

She went on, but I was no longer listening. The charm that had been left glued to Claire's lips was a shooting star. I glanced over to where Kay had been, reading the note I'd shoved at her, but she was no longer there; rather, she was sitting on the swings, another envelope in hand, just waiting.

"Where'd Kay go?" Tim appeared beside me and glanced in the same direction I'd just looked in, frowning. "She was just there…"

"She's on the swings," I said, "Come on." We crossed the tape again and walked over to where Kay was, absentmindedly pushing herself back and forth with her feet. When she heard us, she looked up.

"Whoever this guy is, he knows we're here," she said, more to Bayliss than to me. I waited and she pushed the envelope in her hands at me. It was addressed to her.

"How the hell would he know we're here if we just got here?" Tim asked. I sighed.

"Abby's been here longer than you," I said. "There's no question now that this is the same guy…he's probably watching us to see what we'll do." Kay shuddered.

"God," she said. "I don't even want to think about that." As odd as it was to see her so affected by this, I knew better than to say anything about it and so did Tim, so both of us remained silent as she continued.

"You sure it's only the three of us on this?" she asked me. I nodded.

"Yeah, it's just us. The unit…" I hesitated here; both Kay and Tim gave me a look and I continued. "They know. About the first time. The captain said if I wanted them off, I had to tell them everything."

"I'm assuming they all know why this guy got a walk the first time around," said Kay. "If they had a problem with it, they're all a bunch of hypocrites. I'll bet even they would've done what you and Meldrick did."

"Which was?" Tim's question startled the both of us and we looked at him; it wasn't altogether surprising that he hadn't been told why this guy had walked the first time, but now that it had been mentioned, he needed to know.

"Coercion," I said flatly. "So-called 'police brutality'. Stuff that could have happened in a holding cell but actually took place in the Box. Meldrick and I beat a confession out of him the first time and it got thrown out in court."

"Oh. Is that all?" Tim glanced over in the direction that our latest victim's body had just been and shook his head. "Can't blame you."

I hadn't really expected anything less, considering that this was the same man half the first shift had watched force someone's head up against one of those hot pipes in the box. He seemed to know what I was thinking, though, and didn't continue, placing the three of us in a silence that was starting to leave us quite unsettled. I reached for the envelope in Kay's hands; she gave it up easily, and I pulled another note out.

_"These Manhattan girls are a lot smarter than the Baltimore ones. I haven't met one yet who hasn't fought me. Guess New York isn't as trusting as Maryland. Can't say I blame them, though. In a city this size, I'm surprised that one can trust anybody. But it's obvious, Detective Howard, that you can still be trusted. Otherwise, why would you be here? It's not the new one I'm so worried about; he knows nothing unless he's been told. But I wouldn't put that past you. I've heard rumors saying that the Special Victims Unit has just been pulled from this investigation. If this is really the case, then, Detectives, you will have your work cut out for you. The stakes have risen, as I'm sure you've noticed. Catch me if you can." _

I reread the note a second time, this time silently, before glancing over at Kay, who was still pushing herself back and forth, an unreadable expression on her face.

"Bastard," she muttered, when she noticed me looking at her. Her voice was shaking. "Stakes have risen...what the hell does he think he's playing at?"

"He's set a new pattern," I told her. "The even numbers fetish...last time it was two a month, this time it's four."

"That's great," Tim remarked sarcastically, "So, if he gets off this time, the third time you deal with him, it'll be six a month?"

"There's not going to _be_ a next time," Kay replied flatly. "We'll nail him. I don't care how long it takes, but we'll nail him."

None of us really cared how long this was going to take, but neither Tim or I said anything. Kay got off the swings and sighed, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the rising sun as she looked towards us.

"Abby bring you those old files?" she asked, and I nodded. She looked at her watch and sighed.

"Sixteen murders," she said, almost inaudibly. "What kind of man goes around just killing innocent girls?"

"A sick one," Tim replied, before I could say anything. "What I don't get is how he knew you were even up here."

"Obviously, he's been keeping track if he knows you and I are up here," Kay said dryly. "Think we should tell the Crime Scene Unit about this note?"

"No," I said, "They don't need to know about it. All they need to worry about is forensics...if this guy wants to play games, we'll play."

Then again, playing mind games wasn't exactly the greatest idea. All of us had done it at one point or another in our careers...and never had it gotten us anywhere that we wanted to be.

"Catch me if you can." Kay had taken the note back from me, and was staring down at it, shaking her head. "You can't tell me he's honestly forgotten the last time."

"I doubt anyone would forget something like that," I said dryly. "Don't worry about that note, Kay. You said it yourself. We'll nail him."

It was said more to convince myself than it was to convince them. When Kay had left Homicide the first time around, she was the only one of us with a perfect clearance rate. I had no doubts in her ability to close this case, or even in Tim's. It was myself I doubted. And in a job like this, self-doubt was the quickest way to fall. Tim walked off towards CSU to see if they'd found anything. Kay and I watched him go.

"They're not going to have anything." she said. "New York might be more advanced than us in some places, but they're not going to have anything."

"The one thing they don't have is you and your perfect clearance rate," I said. "But you're probably right."

"Seems like perfect crime, you know?" Kay asked in reply. "There's never any physical evidence, never any fingerprints...how does he do it?"

"I don't know, and I don't want to know, either. All I need to know is that this guy is a perverted bastard."

"Think we'd get off on a justifiable if he ended up dead after we found him?" Somewhat startled by the question, I cast an amused look in Kay's direction and shook my head, trying not to laugh.

"You're the last one I expected to hear that from," I said. "But I think it might be a possibility...so long as no one else was watching."

"He's lucky he didn't end up dead the first time, shooting you and Meldrick like he did." Kay glanced over towards where Tim was and sighed. "Why do I have the feeling that if he does that again, no one's going to give a damn?"

"Because none of them will," I said. "My partner might, but the other two...they're pissed that I asked for them to be taken off the case, so if something happens, I wouldn't put it past them not to care."

"Funny, I was always under the impression that all squads were somewhat like a family no matter where they were."

"Things aren't the way they used to be. This unit...we've come this close to ripping each other's throats out more times than I can count."

"If that's supposed to make me feel better, it's not working, Munch."

"It wasn't. But can you really blame them for being pissed off at me? They were right, I should have told them before."

"This isn't any of their concern .They're not the ones who've had to live with this for the past twenty-odd years."

She had a point there. I'd learned a long while ago not to argue with her in certain cases, and this was one of them. Footsteps caught our attention and we turned to find that Tim had come back from talking to CSU.

"Let me guess," I said, before he could speak. "They didn't have anything."

"You're better at this than you think," Tim replied mildly, "They didn't. No fingerprints, no DNA...nothing."

"They didn't have anything at the other scenes, either," I said. "Just these notes." At this, Kay looked back down at the one in her hands and sighed.

"Four murders," she said. "Last time we got a break after two...maybe we'll get one with the next body."

"We already have a sketch," I said, suddenly remembering the press conference from the night before. "Some girl came in and told us her friend was worried about a man following her home from school."

"You still have that?" Tim asked. I nodded, taking the folded portrait from my coat pocket, and handing it to him.

"The only thing about it is that the unit had a press conference yesterday," I said. "The sketch was released to the public."

"Of all the idiotic..." Kay sighed and ran a frustrated hand through her hair. "Tell me you at least _tried_ to stop them."

"What kind of cop do you think I am?" I asked in reply. "Of course I tried to stop them. You think I wanted this compromised any more than it already is?"

"Arguing isn't going to get us anywhere," said Tim, cutting in before Kay could retort. "We have two notes, four victims, and an estimate of what our guy looks like this time. Now all we can do is wait."

Wait. That was the last thing any of us wanted to be doing, but he was right. Moving without physical evidence was going to get us nowhere. I glanced back towards the area that CSU had just been in, only to find that they were gone. It wasn't surprising: they had no reason to stay if they weren't going to find anything. I was starting to think they were going to stop coming at all to any of our crime scenes if this was going to keep happening. But Kay had had a point. Maybe we _would_ get a lead with the next murder. If our guy was still following a set pattern, it was more than likely.

"So...what do we do now?" Kay asked, choosing to ignore Tim's remark and turning to face me, instead.

"We wait," I replied faintly. "It's all we _can_ do."


	9. Chapter 8

A/N: LSM...you were right. Should have cleared this upa while ago, but I only just realized that now, so I'll do it here. For the record: any of you who are reading this story right now, I'd advise that you read what I have up of 'Made to Be Broken' first...it'll explain a lot...namely, how Munch has a kid in this one, and why he's married. The relationship he has with Abby Williams is nothing but a friendship, and isn't ever going to be more than that...their story's kind of explained in what I have up of 'Life or Something Like It'. Both of the other fics mentioned are currently being worked on, so bear wtih me for now. And now that I'm done rambling, I shall go.

* * *

To say that I wasn't relieved when a fifth murder didn't take place within a few days of the fourth would have been a lie. I _was_ relieved. And it was quite obvious when I looked at Abby, Tim and Kay that they were, too. It was four days into the new month, and we still didn't have anything, but there hadn't been any more murders.

"He's taking too long." Abby's voice broke into the silence that had fallen over us barely two minutes before as we sat there in the back of some random coffee shop that we'd found and walked into. "There should've been another by now."

"Don't tell me you want there to be another one," said Tim, and Abby gave him a look.

"Of course I don't," she said, "I'm just saying that it seems kind of odd that he hasn't moved yet."

"Those notes are all we have to lead us to him," said Kay. "He's been leaving them with every crime scene...they've been getting more specific since the first."

"That's a good thing," I said dryly. "We need them to get more specific. How the hell else are we going to find him? There's nothing else to go on."

"There's got to be something," said Tim. "You can't tell me that this guy has managed to pull off a so-called 'perfect crime' with each murder he's committed."

"So far, he has," I said. "He's gotten smarter at this. And since he knows Abby and Kay are both here, it's going to be a lot harder."

"He said the 'stakes have risen'," said Abby, "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means he's changed his pattern," said Kay. "Last time we dealt with him, we figured out that he's got some sort of fetish with even numbers. There were two murders a month last time..."

"And this time, there were four," said Abby, cutting her off. "This even numbers thing doesn't really tell us anything."

"Yeah, it does," I said. "His weakness. Anything to do with even numbers."

"So, what?" Tim asked. "He gets off on knowing that there are four girls dead and four people working the case?"

"Probably," Kay muttered. "I wouldn't put it past him, honestly. But that's not it. There's something..." She trailed off there, and turned so that she was staring out the window at the people passing us by.

She was right, though neither Abby nor I said anything. There _was_ something else. It wasn't just the even numbers thing anymore. The notes...to make a long story short, it was almost as if they were being left to spite us. Like we really weren't as good as we thought we were at this sort of thing.

"It's another mind game," I said finally. "He knows we're still beating ourselves up over the last time and he wants to play on it."

"Hasn't that bastard done enough damage as it is without making us feel even more like failures?" Abby muttered sarcastically. She reached for the file that I had just closed and sighed, shaking her head. "This is getting ridiculous."

It had been getting ridiculous ever since the second murder. I looked at my watch and sighed, before glancing out in the direction that Kay was looking.

"What's that look for?" I asked. She turned so that she was looking at me, still frowning slightly as she motioned back towards where she'd just been staring.

"Have you ever seen that guy before?" she asked. I looked to where she was pointing and shook my head.

"No, why?" I asked.

"Because he's been watching us for the past twenty minutes." Kay shifted slightly in her position before turning to look at the shadowed figure on the sidewalks again. "I don't think he's up to anything good."

"Neither do I," said Abby, who was looking in the same direction, a disgruntled expression on her face. "How long did you say he's been watching us?"

Kay looked at her watch. "Twenty-four minutes now," she said. "We should get out of here."

"Yeah, we should." I reached into my pocket for my wallet and drew out enough to cover the bill we'd managed to rack up before rising to my feet "Let's go." I started out of the coffee shop and the others followed. Cold air greeted us as we stepped outside; the streetlights had long since flickered on and darkness had already fallen. The figure that had been watching us noticed and started walking away, as if watching us had been something he did on a regular basis.

"You think he was working for whoever's killing these girls?" Tim asked as we started to walk.

"It's likely," I replied. "But that'd be a change...it was only him the last time, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, it was," said Kay, still looking more than slightly disgruntled. "I can't imagine why he'd have someone working for him this time."

"Well, Baltimore's smaller than Manhattan is, population wise," Abby said, almost thoughtfully. "Maybe he thinks he'll be able to keep us off his trail?"

"We don't even have a trail to follow yet," I muttered. "How the hell does he think this is going to help?"

"It's probably how he knew that we were here," said Tim, motioning to himself and then to Kay. "I've got the feeling he's had someone following you since this began."

That in itself was a startling thought. I stopped in my tracks then, causing Abby to run straight into me, nearly knocking the both of us over.

"What was that for?" she demanded, but I wasn't listening; rather, I was looking at my watch, and then in the direction that our mysterious follower had just walked off in.

"I...I think I'm just going to head home," I said. "It's getting late." Abby gave me a skeptical look and glanced down at her own watch.

"What the hell are you talking about, it's getting late?" she asked. "It's not even ten o'clock yet."

"That's beside the point," I told her vaguely. "I'll see you tomorrow." We split up at the corner of the sidewalk we'd been heading down; they went in one direction, I went in the other. And as I walked, part of me wished that Kay hadn't noticed that guy watching us. The other part was yelling at me that it was a good thing, that this time, there might be more to everything than any of us had thought.

* * *

When I got home, the front door was unlocked. As much as I wanted to attribute it to the fact that Rowan could, when she wanted to be, be quite absentminded, seeing that guy watching us had made it so that I couldn't. So I drew my gun and listened. No sound came from inside, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. I waited for a few more seconds before turning the knob and stepping inside; everything was dark. All the lights were off. One of the windows was wide open, and the wind that had just started to pick up was blowing the curtains in every direction. I put my gun back in its holster and walked over to close it; the sound it made when it fell echoed. And then I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned, half-ready to draw my gun again, only to find Rowan standing there behind me.

"When did you get home?" she asked. I turned back to lock the window and then faced her again, sighing.

"About two minutes ago," I said. "The front door was unlocked."

"Couldn't have been," came the reply. "I locked everything right before I went to bed…even went back to check."

An uneasy feeling settled over me at this; I reached out and turned a light on so that I could see her clearly as I continued.

"What about the window?" I asked. "It was closed when you turned the lights out?"

"Yeah, it was closed." Rowan fell silent then and eyed me for a long moment before going on. "Are you all right?"

"No," I replied, "I'm not. You're sure everything was locked when you went to bed?"

"I already told you they were." That answer only served to confirm my suspicions. Someone else had been there.

"You didn't hear anyone out here, did you?" I asked. Rowan shook her head, glancing at the watch that was still on her wrist before moving to take it off.

"No, I didn't hear anyone," she said, "But I do think you're being paranoid. When's the last time you slept?"

And there was one of the questions I _didn't_ want to answer, but the look she was giving me left me without a choice.

"I don't know," I said. "Honestly, I don't _want_ to know, either, because I've got too many files to go through again to be worrying about that..."

I knew the argument was as good as over before I'd even started; Rowan, Abby and Rose were all very much alike in that aspect, and it really wasn't worth it to waste time arguing with any one of them. So I didn't. Instead, I turned the light out and walked off after Rowan, back towards the bedroom.

"You've got to quit doing this to yourself," she said, and I looked at her, bending down to untie my shoes and take them off, without bothering to turn the lights on.

"You've been talking to Abby," I said slowly, unsure of where she was going to go with this. She shook her head.

"I've been talking to Rose," she admitted. "Abby wouldn't tell me anything."

"Wait a minute," I said, straightening and looking over at her. "You're telling me that you went behind my back to find out what all of this is about?"

"It's not as if you'd have told me yourself," Rowan said dryly, without looking me in the eye. "How else was I supposed to find anything out?"

"There's a reason I wasn't telling you anything," I replied. "I can't believe Rose would actually...what all did she tell you?"

"That the folders you and Abby have here are all old case files..."

"You looked through them, didn't you?" Silence met this question and I gave an exasperated sigh, coming to sit on the bed and deciding to concentrate on the clock on the bedside table. "I can't believe this."

"What did you expect me to do?" Rowan asked, sounding annoyed. "You think I enjoy watching you like this?"  
"Honestly, I didn't think you cared one way or the other," I muttered dryly, "And I sure as hell didn't want you to see those files."

"If you're going to keep them here, they're going to get looked at. What I don't see is why you couldn't have just told me about it." she retorted.

"For the same reason I didn't tell the unit until a few days ago," I shot back. "It's bad enough that they know it's my fault this is even happening. Did you really think I wanted _you_ knowing that, too?"

And again, there was silence. After a few minutes went by, I forced myself to look back at her; she was staring at me as if I were more of an idiot than she'd previously thought.

"Let me ask _you_ something," she said finally. "Did you really think I was just going to sit here and watch this without asking someone what was going on?"

"I don't see why you care so much. This is mine to deal with, Rowan, it has nothing to do with you."

"Then do you want to tell me why you were asking about the door and the window?"

"No. I don't. It's nothing you need to worry about...not yet, anyways." A skeptical look crossed Rowan's face at this, but she didn't press any further. Instead, she glanced over my shoulder at the clock and sighed.

"You really ought to sleep," she said. I shook my head, moving so that I was lying beside her and sighed.

"You're one to talk," I said. "Both of us have to work tomorrow, not just me." She rolled her eyes, moving so that her head was resting on my shoulder.

"You need it more than I do," she replied, and when I opened my mouth to protest this, she shook her head. "I don't want to hear it, all right? At least _try_."

"All right," I said, "All right. I'll try. But I'd better not wake up to find out you turned the alarm off again."

"What makes you think I'd do that?"

"The innocent act isn't going to work. You've done it before, and I wouldn't put it past you to do it again, so just don't."

"Fine. I won't...but only if it looks like you've actually been to sleep when I get up to go to work."

"Since when does it ever look like I've been to sleep?" No answer came. I moved so that I could see her clearly, only to find that she had already drifted off.

At least _she_ didn't have anything to worry about...other than hormonal teenagers and grading papers, that is. Orange lights filtered in through the window, the product of nearby streetlights, casting shadows over the ring on my finger. I figured then as I looked at it that I should have told her about my suspicions, but she was already asleep and I didn't want to wake her up again. Besides that, I had no proof that my suspicions were anything but that.

Shadows drifted across the ceiling when I looked up. I couldn't make out any of the shapes, but for some reason, they were oddly comforting...probably because they were there every time I did this at night. I waited, then, for sleep to come, and when it did, I found myself floating backwards in time...again.


	10. Chapter 9

A/N: Here goes nothing...finally figured out what to do with the next flashback (thanks, LSM), so here you have it. Anyways...Ch. 10 is almost done, so it should be posted sometime soon, so for now, this is it..._

* * *

_

_The Box was cold. Normally, it wasn't, but I had the feeling that it had more to do with the situation than the building itself. Meldrick and I had only just come back to work two weeks ago, and now we were about to interrogate the very one everyone thought had taken us off the streets in the first place...the very one who'd committed the murders the entire squad had been trying to solve. The sound of the door closing echoed behind me, and suddenly, I felt as if I didn't want to be there. But the both of us had argued with Gee for a straight hour to be able to do this, so I remained where I was. _

_"It's nice to see that the both of you made it. I must admit, I didn't really expect you to." Brandon Collins sat a few feet away from us, his feet propped up on the table, and a self-satisfied smirk on his face._

_"You're still gonna face the charges for trying to kill us," Meldrick replied, before I could say anything. "That's what, twelve murders and two attempted?" _

_"You have no evidence linking me to any of these murders," said Brandon. "It's a bluff." _

_"I wouldn't be too sure of that if I were you," I said, somehow managing to regain my voice. "That last girl you went after...she's alive." _

_"Figures," Brandon said, looking supremely unconcerned with the information he'd just been given. "Thirteen always was an unlucky number." _

_"You sick son of a bitch." Meldrick leaned back against the wall closest to him, shaking his head in disgust. "You think this is funny, don't you?" _

_"Certainly not," Brandon replied. "This puts me in a rather complicated situation." _

_"The only thing that's going to be _complicated_ is figuring out whether or not to kill you or keep you in prison for the rest of your miserable life." I retorted. _

_"I have doubts that I'll end up receiving the death penalty, Detective," Brandon said coolly. "Neither of you can prove that it was I who shot you, and I have the feeling that Detective Howard won't be able to, either." _

_At this, Meldrick and I exchanged glances. He was right. Neither of us could say with certainty that it had been him who'd shot us. Then again, we didn't exactly remember much. The only things I really remembered was seeing him in front of us...and then a sudden pain in my back. The next thing either of us had known, we'd woken up in the hospital, with the entire shift standing over us. _

_"That doesn't matter," said Meldrick, his voice effectively cutting into my thoughts. "Far as we know, you're the one who did it. We already know you committed twelve murders." _

_"Twelve." At this, a faint smile crossed Brandon's face, and Meldrick and I watched as he leaned back. "Great number, isn't it?" _

_"Depends on what you're using it for," I replied slowly, unsure of where he was going with this. He smirked in my direction. _

_"Everything, of course, Detective," he said. "Even numbers are easier to work with than odd, aren't they? Always something to go with something else…a body to go with another." _

_"So you admit that you actually committed these murders?" Meldrick asked. He shook his head. _

_"I admit to nothing," he said. "Physical evidence will be key, in this case, I'm assuming. And since you have none, there _is_ no case without a confession." _

_"We've got you for at least twelve hours," I said. "Heck of a way to be found, though, isn't it? Getting caught shoplifting? Your face is known all over this city. Did you think you wouldn't end up with us?"  
"Oh, I expected to," Brandon said, leaning back in his chair, and tilting his head so that he could see both Meldrick and me clearly. "This has been an interesting game so far, don't you think?" _

_"You think this is a game?" Meldrick asked. "You got another thing coming to you if you do. This ain't a game. You're going down for these murders." _

_"I wouldn't count on that if I were you. You might have found me before, but once I walk out of here again, I'm leaving Baltimore." said Brandon._

_"You're not walking out of anywhere." I said. "Everything points to you. The charms, the notes…you slipped up, Collins, and now you're scared because you know we have you." _

_"You have nothing," Brandon insisted, "How do you know someone else didn't write those notes?" _

_"Who else would be stupid enough to help you with this?" Meldrick asked in reply. _

_"The same man who shot the both of you." Startled by the answer, Meldrick and I exchanged glances, waiting. Brandon smirked and continued. _

_"That's right," he said, "I know exactly who it is. And I'm not going to tell you, either. Just like I'm not going to tell you about the murders." _

_"We keep you in here long enough, you'll talk." I wished that I felt as confident as I'd somehow managed to make myself sound, but I didn't. He seemed to know this, too, because he shook his head. _

_"You two really aren't that good at this, are you?" he asked. "How many months has it been since the first murder? Eight, maybe nine? And you're only just catching me now?" _

_"That has nothing to do with anything," said Meldrick. "I hardly think you could've expected anyone to catch you when they're all out looking for someone who tried to kill two cops." _

_"I'm starting to think it might have been better if the both of you had ended up dead, death penalty or not," Brandon said icily. "I don't have to listen to this…" He rose to his feet and made as if he were going to leave; I moved so that I was standing in front of the door leading out. _

_"You're not going anywhere," I told him, "Sit down." He didn't move, and neither did I. _

_"Who do you think you are?" he asked, almost inaudibly. "Do you really think either one of you is going to be able to stop me?" _

_"There's no such thing as a perfect crime," Meldrick said dryly, from his position a few feet away. "You slipped. One of your victims lived. She might be traumatized, but she'll testify." _

_"And if something happens to her before she can?" Brandon asked. "Then what? You'll have no case." _

_Silence fell over us then, more intimidating than anything else. The look on Meldrick's face was suddenly murderous; he looked at me for a split second…and then a loud smack filled the room. Brandon stumbled backwards, and glared at him._

_"I could have your shield for that," he said calmly. _

_"I'd love to see you try," Meldrick retorted. "No one around here is going to say they saw anything." _

_"Funny, I always thought of the police department as the ones to uphold the law." came the reply. Brandon waited a split second before turning to face me again. "This isn't going to get you anywhere." _

_"Maybe this will." I hadn't expected to follow Meldrick's lead, but I did, somehow managing to hit him square in the gut, even though I hadn't been looking. This time, he moved out of our reach, struggling to catch his breath. _

_"I'll have both of you off the force for this," he said, his tone low and threatening. "You're going to regret this." _

_"Not as much as you're going to regret what you did." Another smack. "You've got two choices. You either tell us what we want to know, or deal with this. Take your pick." _

_Silence. I wondered for a moment if there was anyone watching us, and then realized that I didn't really care. It hardly seemed to matter. Here was a man who had murdered twelve different girls and could laugh about it. Whatever he was feeling was nothing compared to what the rest of us had been going through. _

_Suddenly, it felt warm. I didn't know why, and I didn't know how; all I could see was Brandon getting up and coming towards me, pushing me backwards…I fought, but it wasn't his voice I heard. _

_"John!" A second set of hands reached for my own; I swatted them away, no longer caring what effects this was going to have on me or my later career. None of it seemed to matter anymore, and suddenly I found myself struggling with someone that I'd have had no problem with killing, and wondering why it wasn't his voice that was hearing. _

_"You're hurting me!" _It was the sound of someone choking that woke me up. I blinked, and when I could see again, I was no longer in the Box with Meldrick…I was at home. I looked towards the clock; it was exactly 4:43 in the morning. Rowan sat beside me, trying to catch her breath and looking more scared than I had ever seen her before. A bruise was slowly starting to form over her eye. I stared down at my hands in disbelief for what seemed like forever, but was really only a minute. And before I could move, before I could say anything, the phone rang.

* * *

I reached for it, getting there before she did, and waited, listening to Tim's voice on the other side. A few seconds later, I hung up, got dressed again, and left, without saying a word.

It started to rain right when I got to where the other three were, all of them standing just outside the crime scene tape, waiting for me.

"Took you long enough," Abby said, not bothering to put a hand over her mouth as she yawned. "I'll never get how you guys do this."

"And I doubt we'll ever get how you do your job," Kay said dryly. We crossed the tape, completely ignoring the uniforms that came towards us; they seemed to know, though, even without us saying anything, that we were there to investigate this. Melinda was bent over the body, just like she was the last time, but this time, all of us could tell that she was fighting to keep from breaking down.

"How old is she?" Kay spoke before any of us could even move to do so; Melinda looked up at her and sighed.

"Two," she said. "I don't…I can't tell right here whether or not he raped her, but I wouldn't doubt it."

"I take it there's not any ID?" said Abby. Melinda shook her head without really answering and motioned to her assistants. Our fifth victim disappeared with them a few minutes later.

"Two years old." Tim shook his head in disgust, staring off in the direction that they'd just gone. "That's our youngest, yet."

"Yeah," Abby said absently, "It is." She was staring off in the same direction that he was, and when she noticed me looking at her, she sighed.

"Might as well see if we can't find a note," she said finally. "Maybe he'll give us something we can use."

The four of us split up then, and walked off in two different directions. Tim went with Abby. I went with Kay. The incident back at home was still on my mind; I didn't notice that my hands were shaking, but she did, and she called me on it.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Nothing," I replied vaguely, "It's nothing. I'm just tired, and I'm sick of having to deal with all of this."

"So retire," she said bluntly, "And quit giving me the runaround. What's going on? You weren't like this at the last scene."

"I hadn't tried to kill my wife before coming to the last scene," I muttered sarcastically. Kay stopped dead in her tracks at this, causing me to walk right into her.

"You what?" she demanded. I cast an exasperated look at her, and moved so that I could walk again.

"I don't want to talk about it, all right?" I said. "It was nothing." Kay gave a derisive snort and followed me.

"Nothing, my ass," she said. "You don't just tell me something like that and expect me not to ask."

"I was asleep," I replied, trying and failing to keep from sounding annoyed. "I didn't even know what I was doing until I woke up, and then I saw her, and then the phone rang, so I left."

"You left." Kay paused for a few seconds before continuing on. "You apologized for whatever it was that you did, right?"

I didn't answer. She seemed to know exactly what that meant, and shook her head.

"I can't believe you," she said. "You were in that much of a hurry to get here that you didn't even bother apologizing?"

"I don't want to hear this right now, Kay," I replied. "In fact, I don't want to hear it at all. Let's just get this over with, huh?"

She gave me an annoyed look and pushed past me; I followed her and gave her a look.

"So, what?" I asked. "You're not going to talk to me now? That's great, Kay. You want to act like this, you can take yourself right back down to Baltimore."

"I'm not going anywhere," she said, stopping in her tracks again and turning to glare at me. "_You're_ the one that shouldn't be on this case, if anything. How long have you been having these nightmares? And don't tell me it was just a few hours ago, either."

"Why do you care?" I asked. "None of that has anything to do with you, or with Bayliss, or with Abby."

"And yet you're standing here talking to me about it," Kay said mildly. "Answer the question. How long?"  
I gave an exasperated sigh, hesitating for as long as I dared before looking away. "Since it started." Nothing but silence met this and I went on. "Come on, Kay, don't do this to me now."

"You're doing it to yourself," she said. "I gotta tell you, I think this is bothering you more now than it did before."

"You're damn right it is!" I exclaimed, staring at her. "How would you like to know that the only reason all these kids are dead is because you screwed up and couldn't nail the guy the first time?"

"I wouldn't," said Kay, "But that doesn't change the fact that this is affecting you. You can't just sit here and keep it bottled up."  
"So, what are you now, a shrink?" I asked acidly. "I don't need you or anyone else trying to get into my head right now."

"Well, someone's going to have to!" Kay shot back. "Tell me something, Munch, how close have you come to eating your gun since all this started up again?"

Her question startled me. Truth was, I _had_ thought about it…I just hadn't done it. Nor did I want anyone to _know _that I'd thought about it. She stood there, though, just staring at me, and I knew she was waiting for an answer, so I gave one.

"Closer than I'd like to think about right now," I admitted. "I _really_ do not want to talk about this right now. Can we finish this conversation later?"

Kay fixed me with an appraising look, and we stood there for another long moment before she relented. "Fine," she said, "But don't think this is over, I still want to talk to you."

"You can talk all you want after we find the next note," I said, "But for now, let's just…"

"Hey, you two! Come over here, we've got something!" Abby's voice was nearly lost through the rainstorm, but it was clear enough for both of us to hear; we exchanged glances and walked over to where she and Tim were standing, waiting for us.

"You want to read it or should I?" she asked.

"You do it," I said, "I'm not up to reading anything right now." I saw Kay give me another one of her looks out of the corner of my eye; the significance of this was completely missed by both Tim and Abby. A few seconds passed as Abby pulled the latest note from the envelope and started to read.

_"Did you miss me? I'm assuming that you probably didn't, which, to tell you the truth, doesn't really bother me at all. I'm starting to enjoy this little chase we're on. But five…well, now, Detectives, ASA Williams, you all know me better than that. Five is quite an unlucky number, but six…that's half of twelve, isn't it? I think I'm getting old…not moving as fast as I used to. Ah, well. That hardly matters. I'll make up for it sooner or later. For the record, your latest victim's name is Kayley Fiddler. I'm sure your medical examiner has already informed you that she is…or rather was…two years old. Maybe that will help you get a move on. Your Crime Scene Unit should have found something by now. You remember my patterns, don't you? A two-murder a month pattern, a physical clue with the third victim. Four, and a clue after the fifth. Good luck." _

"Wow." Tim shook his head, taking the note from Abby's hands and rereading it silently before looking up again. "This guy's a real piece of work."  
"Tell me about it," Abby muttered sarcastically. She sighed and glanced in the general direction of the CSU technicians. "At least they'll have something this time."

"Oh, yeah, that'll help," I said. "Knowing him, it's probably something trivial that has nothing to do with the case at all."

"There's another note here." Tim reached over Abby's head towards the top of the swings and pulled down another envelope. Even through the shadows cast by the nearby lights, all of us could see that it was addressed to him. He ignored the looks we gave him and pulled out the second note of the night.

_"You know, I really should have gotten rid of that bracelet when I got it. But there were so many charms on it…twenty, to be exact. Now, however…there are fourteen of them now. I'm quite sure that the others have filled you in, Detective Bayliss, on my so-called 'fetish' with even numbers, and as sad as it is, they're right. I can't stand being around odd numbers for very long, it's a strange habit, but one I find that I can't get rid of no matter how hard I try. And now that I've managed to go completely off-topic, back to that bracelet. I'm surprised no one noticed, or remembered, I really couldn't tell you which, that the victim in your first case had been wearing a bracelet. A charm bracelet, to be specific. Let this be a clue, then, into solving _your_ first case. Perhaps something good will come of this after all." _

"That sick son of a bitch." Tim's voice was shaking with barely suppressed anger. "Fourteen years. Fourteen long years, and I'm only just getting a break on that case."

He didn't have to elaborate. Kay and I both knew what he was talking about, and Abby did, as well, even though she'd been replaced by Ed Danvers when Adena Watson's case landed in our laps. He looked at the note again, his hands shaking, looking for all the world as if he were this close to tearing it to pieces, much like I had almost done with the second note, but he didn't. Instead, he folded it and tucked it away into his pocket before turning away from us.

"He's got a point," Kay said in an undertone, more to me than to Abby, who was glancing sideways at her watch, trying to see what time it now was. "Why didn't anyone mention that Adena had been wearing a bracelet?"

"She was missing an earring," I said. "That was obvious…she was still wearing one when she was found. A bracelet…that would have been easier to miss."

"And he kept it." Kay shook her head as Tim walked off towards where CSU was, with Abby beside him. "A trophy, maybe?"

"One that he's wanting to get rid of. The last four charms were all from that bracelet, and I doubt he left the rest of it behind."

"What was the first charm? He said fourteen of them were left on Adena's bracelet, but there have been five murders. There should be fifteen left."

"The first charm…" I started to walk off towards Tim and Abby; Kay followed, waiting for me to continue. I stopped just short of the playground structure and turned to face her. "It was a Maryland flag."

"Bastard," Kay muttered. "He meant it as a challenge…something to let you know that it was really him and not some copycat."

"As much as I hate to admit this right now, I was trying to convince myself that it was a copycat."

"So what convinced you it wasn't?"

"The note at the second crime scene. He said that now it was obvious I remembered the first time, went on some rant about how there was the blood of fourteen…well, seventeen, now…kids on my hands and…" I trailed off then, and looked at her over my glasses. "You don't really need me to tell you any more, do you?"

"No." Kay sighed as she looked back at me and ran a tired hand through her hair. "I don't. I think we've all heard enough for one night."

The rain started to pick up as soon as the last word left her mouth, further obscuring our view of Tim, Abby and CSU. The light above us flickered for a long moment before going out completely, covering us in darkness. We remained where we were, staring off into nothingness. Things had definitely just been taken to a whole new level.


	11. Chapter 10

A/N: So, here's Ch. 10 as promised...

* * *

"I take it Bayliss didn't want to come with you?" Abby looked up from the latest file in her hands and glanced towards Kay, sighing. "He's still having trouble with this, isn't he?"

"Wouldn't you?" I asked. "Your first red-ball, you never close it and fourteen years later, this happens? What are the odds of that?"

"Next to none," said Abby, "But that's beside the point. How was he when you left?" Kay shrugged.

"Don't know," she replied, "He wouldn't talk to me. He just keeps looking at that note like something's going to jump out at him."

"Let's hope something does," I said dryly, "God only knows we could use something other than that sketch. He's probably seen it and changed already."

"I wouldn't put it past him." Kay sighed and slid into the empty seat beside Abby, tapping her fingers on the table surface. "I've got a bad feeling, though."

"About what?" I asked, looking up from the file in my own hands and glancing in her direction. "We're doing fine so far, considering."

"I know that," said Kay "But that's not what I'm talking about. I mean that guy that was watching us. Who was he?"

"No idea," said Abby. "I've never seen him before...you think he could be working for whoever we're looking for?"

"That's a possibility," I said, suddenly uncomfortable with the direction this conversation was taking. "Maybe there's more than one of them."

"That would explain the number of murders both times around, but who would be stupid enough to do something like this?" Kay asked.

"Any number of people," I told her, "You'd be surprised. In fact, if this guy does have someone working for him, it might be the same person who shot me and Meldrick."

"How'd you know?" The startled look that crossed her face at this remark told me that she'd known all along there had been an accomplice, and I stared at her in disbelief.

"You knew?" I demanded. "You knew and you didn't say anything?" Kay sighed, running a hand through her hair before answering.

"Gee told me not to," she said. "We looked for the other guy for days...by the time you woke up, we were convinced he'd left Baltimore. Now, you gonna tell me how you knew there was a second guy, or what?"

"That dream I had the other night," I admitted. "It...it was the scene in the Box. When Meldrick and I almost ended up killing Collins." It was the first time that any of us had spoken our main suspect's name aloud, and I paused for a moment before continuing. "He...he mentioned something about there being a second guy."

"Wow." Abby leaned back in her seat, a look of disbelief on her face as well as she shook her head. "Shows how much dreams can tell you, huh?"

"It's not exactly something I'd be willing to go through again, considering," I told her mildly. "I hadn't ever thought about it until that night."

"There are a lot of things none of us have thought about until now," said Kay, before Abby could reply. "It's only going to get worse."

She was right about that, even though I highly doubted things could possibly get any worse than they already were. And that was without this new development and the nightmares that had been bothering me since it all began. Abby pushed at my foot under the table and when I looked up at her, the expression on her face was one of concern.

"You all right?" she asked. I nodded absently, reaching across the table for the file that she was still holding, and starting to go through it before she had the chance to continue on. She gave me a look, waiting until Kay got up and walked off before saying anything else.

"Don't you dare start giving me the runaround now," she said in an undertone, so that no one else could hear us. "What's really going on with you?"

"Nothing's going on with me," I replied. "It's just that stupid nightmare. I'll get over it."

"That's what you said last time." The annoyed look that had crossed Abby's face had changed again, and she reached out, taking one of my hands in both of her own. "Talk to me."

"There's nothing to talk about," I replied, without looking her in the eye. "Really, Abby, there's nothing to worry about."

She gave me a skeptical look, but didn't let go of my hand. I knew what she was thinking. It was the same thing that Kay had asked the night we discovered our fifth victim. I couldn't blame either one of them for wanting to know...especially since I had already started to doubt myself.

"You should take your gun to the precinct," Abby said finally, quietly, and in that instant, all of it came flooding back.

* * *

_The news had been predicting thunderstorms ever since last week, but they'd been wrong until that night. The power had gone out just as the clocks had struck nine o'clock, and I'd lost track of how much time had passed. I'd left my watch downstairs in the kitchen, where Abby and Rose were, and I didn't feel like going back to get it. It was too dark for me to see, anyhow, even with my glasses, so I remained where I was. The sound of thunder made me jump every few seconds, as did the flashes of lightning that came along, lighting the room up when they did. _

_Six files sat spread out on the bed in front of me. I couldn't see any of them, but I knew who was in each one. The one closest to me was the case that had started it all. The others had followed. All of the names were in red under my own in the board. I was seriously starting to wonder then whether or not it'd be worth it to stay in Homicide after all of this was over, but I didn't want to think about it, so I managed to shove that thought to the back of my mind._

_"Oh, for God's sake, Abby, watch where you're going!" Rose's voice drifted up towards me, half-annoyed and half-amused. I listened, having nothing better to do. _

_"It'd be easier if I wasn't holding a baby, you think?" Abby sounded as if she were this close to laughing as she continued on. "Where'd John take off to?" _

_"No idea. I think he might've left, and I'm gonna kill him if he did, have you seen what it looks like out there?" _

_"It's hard not to notice when the power's out. All we can see out there is that damned storm." Silence fell. I wondered for a few seconds if either of them would come up to look for me, but when I didn't hear footsteps, I knew they weren't going to. I wanted them to, though...but at the same time, I was relieved that they hadn't. _

_"We should probably get the girls to bed." Rose remarked finally, and even though I wasn't downstairs with them, I could see Abby rolling her eyes. _

_"I hardly think it matters," she said dryly, "Not like either of them are old enough to go to school." _

_"That's beside the point," came the reply, "It's what, nine-thirty, maybe ten? The last thing I want to do is deal with irritable kids tomorrow." _

_"It is," Here, Abby paused, and it was obvious that she was looking at her watch, just to annoy Rose. "Exactly eleven o'clock." _

_Two hours. Two long hours. Time I could have spent looking for something, anything, that would help the shift break this case, and instead I was sitting there in the dark because of some thunderstorm. Six murders that hadn't been solved, and so far, all anyone could do was assume that we were doing something wrong. _

_"I'm starting to get kind of worried now." Abby's voice broke into my thoughts for a second time, and I looked towards the doorway, still hoping that neither of them would come up, though I still hadn't figured out why. _

_"Oh, for heaven's sake, Abby, I'm quite sure he can take care of himself." _

_"Look who's talking. You're usually the one who's always worrying about everyone." _

_"I really don't feel like arguing with you right now, Abby, can this wait until the lights go back on?" _

_"Doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon." _

_"So I guess we won't be talking anytime soon." Again, there was silence. Lightning flashed, and when it did, I caught sight of my gun, lying there on the bedside table. Before I even realized I'd moved, I was holding it. _

_"You know what, I'm going to go upstairs and try not to kill myself, because this is really starting to bother me." _

_""Abby, for God's sake, leave John alone. He's probably asleep." _

_"Yeah, right. The last time he slept is when you practically forced those sleeping pills down his throat." _

_"He told you that?" _

_"He doesn't _have_ to tell me that, it's obvious. All you have to do is look at him." Footsteps sounded in the hall leading to the stairwell. _

_"If you go up there and he really is asleep, I'm going to kill you if you wake him up, Abby." _

_"Do you really think I'm that stupid? The way things have been going, he'd probably wake up and shoot me." _

_"I wouldn't blame him for it, either." _

_"What happened to not wanting to argue with me?" _

_"I changed my mind. And I mean it, Abby, if he's sleeping, you'd better not wake him up." _

_I had half a mind at this point to just pretend that I really was sleeping, just to get them to leave me alone. The gun was heavy in my hands. I stared at it for a long moment as lightning came again and then did something I had never thought I'd end up doing. And just as I did, the door to the room I was in came flying open. _

_"One good reason," I told her quietly as she stood there, just staring at me. "You give me one good reason, and I swear to God I'll forget about this." _

_"Put the gun down." came the reply. Even in the darkness, I could see that the look on her face was one of fear. I couldn't blame her, especially not considering what I was this close to doing. _

_"No." I said. "Not until you give me a reason why I shouldn't just end all of this now." _

_"Let's see," Abby said, and I could hear her sarcasm returning. "How about the fact that you're the primary on this case?" _

_"That's the problem," I told her. "I can't…I can't do this anymore, Abby. All those names in red…." _

_"Are gonna end up getting this guy a needle in his arm when we nail him," came the reply. _

_"Don't you mean if?" I moved my arm, and I could see her jump, but I was beyond caring. She remained where she was, but continued. _

_"No, I mean when." she said. "Come on. Don't do this. Put the damn gun down, lock it up or something…forget about this." _

_"Forget?" I demanded. "How the hell am I supposed to forget? Do you not see these files? This…this is probably the best thing I could do right now." _

_"Damn it, Abby, I told you not to go up there and wake him up!" Rose's voice came drifting up towards us, sounding more annoyed than anything else. Abby looked in the direction of the sound before turning back to me, still looking upset. _

_"There," she said, "You see? There's a perfectly good reason. You go and off yourself, there's gonna be no one to fix things when they get screwed up between me and Rose, and then what, huh? But hey, maybe twenty-odd years of being friends doesn't mean anything to you. You wanna kill yourself to get away from this mess, that's on you. I'm not going to stop you. But I'm not going to stop Rose running up here to see you with a bullet in your head, either, so you think about that." _

_Thunder cracked loudly in the distance. The sound of someone crying caught my attention suddenly; I looked towards Abby, but it wasn't her. It was me. The gun fell from my grip, thankfully not going off as I leaned forward, hiding my face in my hands. And then Abby was there, sitting next to me, reaching out with tentative arms to hug me, as if she thought I'd push her away. I didn't. If I hadn't wanted her there before, I wanted her there now; had she not walked in, I had the feeling that I would have ended up pulling that trigger._

_We sat there in silence for a long while after that, the only sounds coming from the storm raging outside. What seemed like forever passed before Abby spoke again._

_"You have got to talk to someone about this." I could tell by her voice that she'd been crying as well, even if I hadn't heard her, and it only made me feel worse as she continued. "How long were you gonna wait, huh? What if no one had come up here?" _

_I didn't answer, but my silence seemed to tell her what I was unwilling to say. She sighed, pushing me backwards so that she could look me in the eye. _

_"I'm taking this," she said, picking up the gun and fixing it so that the safety was on. "You can have it when you go back to work. I don't give a damn what Rose says, I'm going to headquarters, and I'm gonna make second shift keep an eye on it." _

_"And if I leave when you two are sleeping and get it?" _

_"You'd better hope you kill yourself with the first shot, because if you don't, I'll do it for you." _

_Her response told me that she wasn't as upset as she had been barely ten minutes ago; neither was I, for that matter. I couldn't believe that I had actually come that close to doing something like that. Abby let go of me, then, and I looked at her. _

_"You think I'm crazy now, don't you?" I asked. She eyed the gun in her hands and then looked at me, shaking her head. _

_"I think this case is getting to be a bit much for all of us," she replied. "I just…God, do you have any idea how scared I was watching you like that? If I expected anyone to go that far, I thought it would be me." _

_Silence fell again, and before I could reply, the lights came on, and Rose appeared in the doorway, holding a sleeping Michelle, and glaring at Abby. _

_"I left Liana downstairs, she fell asleep….and what the hell are you doing with that gun?" she said. _

_"Nothing," Abby replied, without looking me in the eye. "I was about to take it on over to headquarters." _

_"Oh, no you're not," said Rose, That storm is still going." Abby rolled her eyes. _

_"I think I've lived long enough to know how to drive in a storm, and besides that, I don't think we need any guns in this house right now." _

_She rose to her feet and walked off; when we heard a door slamming, we knew it was her leaving. Rose shifted Michelle in her arms and sighed. _

_"I swear to God, she is the most stubborn person in the world," she muttered. "Any idea what that was all about?" _

_I shook my head, not wanting to tell her what Abby had walked in on and what I'd almost done. _

_"Couldn't tell you," I said. "She was probably afraid it'd go off or something." Rose rolled her eyes. _

_"The only way that damned thing is going to go off is if someone pulls the trigger." She shifted Michelle again and looked at her watch. "It's two in the morning. You should probably get some sleep." _

_She turned to go, closing the door behind her. I looked down at the files still spread out before me on the bed before closing them all, and turning off the lights. Abby had been right. I did need to talk to someone…anyone, really, even if it was only her and Rose. That much had been proven by what had almost happened. _

_I heard footsteps in the hallway and closed my eyes as the door opened again, knowing that it was Rose coming to see whether or not I'd taken her seriously. She seemed to be satisfied; a few seconds later, the door closed again, and I opened my eyes. _

_I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep. That much was a given. Too much had happened in the short span of forty-five minutes for me to even think about it. So I didn't. Instead, I stared up at the ceiling, watching the shadows, silently thankful that Abby had somehow known to come look for me…had somehow known to come and save me from myself.  
_


	12. Chapter 11

A/N: I have really got to learn how to split things into different chapters...this is longer than any of the other chapters, I know, but hey, that's just the way this sort of thing goes. Some chapters are longer than others. And now that I'm done being snarky, I shall go.

* * *

"What are you doing here?" Elliot's voice drifted towards me as I entered the squad room two days after that conversation with Abby, and I paused in the doorway, turning so that I was facing him.

"What's it to you?" I asked in reply. "This isn't your squad room; I can come here whenever the hell I want. Back off."

"You're telling me to back off? After that stunt you just pulled?" Elliot glanced up from his paperwork and shook his head in my direction. "You know, I'm actually surprised you're taking this on by yourself."

"I'm not," I told him, "I've got three other people working with me, two, if you want to get technical."

"How the hell do you expect to nail this guy with a bunch of misfits from Baltimore who probably don't know Manhattan from Staten Island?" he asked.

"How the hell do I expect to get anything done working with someone like you?" I asked in reply. He gave me a look.

"You've got all your files," he said, "You've got all the evidence, because none of it has been coming over here. What could you possibly want now?"

"You know, I didn't even come to talk to you," I said. "I came to talk to Fin. You have any idea where he is?"

"Why should I tell you? Not like you really give a damn, anyways, leaving us hanging the way you did."

"Why should I work with people who don't know anything about the first round of cases?" I asked, my patience starting to wear thin. "It hardly makes any sense for me to do that when I can work with people who where there when this first came along."

"It hardly makes any sense for you to bring two cops from another department up here when you know damn well our unit can handle it," Elliot retorted. "Are we just not good enough for you anymore?"

"If you have to ask me that, then you're obviously not as secure with yourself as you think you are," I replied. "Now, are you going to tell me where the hell Fin is, or not?"

"He's out," Elliot told me shortly. "Left about an hour ago with Olivia; they went to a crime scene. I don't know when they'll be back."

He turned back to his paperwork then, and didn't continue, a sure sign that I was to leave, but as I turned to do so, his voice came drifting towards me again.

"You know you're only doing this just so the rest of us won't ever have to find out how much of a failure you really are." I stopped in my tracks and turned to face him again, scowling.

"You're one to talk about being a failure," I retorted. "You couldn't even manage to keep a twenty-year marriage together."

"Since when do you have any room to talk about that? What's Rowan to you, anyway, another number?"

"That's for me to know, and you to find out. The way you're going, I'm surprised you haven't managed to prove the department right...half of them think you're this close to losing it."

"You're really starting to piss me off, Munch."

"Doesn't really take a lot nowadays, does it? But really, I'm surprised you haven't gone off the deep end yet. Think it'll happen anytime soon?"

It probably wasn't a good idea to antagonize him the way I was doing, but I was beyond caring anymore. He was still sitting; I was back in the squad room door again, and neither of us were moving. He looked up from his paperwork again, glaring in my direction.

"Go to hell," he snapped. "What makes you think I give a damn what the department has to say about me?"

"Well, if you didn't, you wouldn't be getting so defensive, and if anyone needs to go to hell, it's you." I retorted. "I'm surprised Olivia hasn't left you out to dry yet, the way you've been acting lately."

"You leave her out of this."

"No. I'm not going to leave her out of this. You've been an insufferable asshole for what, a year and a half now? It's starting to piss everyone off."

"Not as much as you just did. You really think replacing us with Baltimore cops is going to do you any good?"

"It will if it means I don't have to work with the likes of you for a while. You'd probably end up getting the whole damn case thrown out."

"Like you did?" Elliot's tone was icy; he looked as if he were halfway to getting up and coming to hit me, but I remained where I was and he continued. "What exactly did you do that got this case thrown out down there?"

"None of your damn business. Why do you care, anyway? This isn't your case, it never was, and it never will be."

"This is too personal for you. You know as well as any of us do that the only reason you're doing this is so you can make up for your screw-ups."

"I'm doing this to take a criminal off the streets." My voice was shaking by this point, and it was all I could do to keep from yelling at him. "You think what you want to. I know what I'm doing."

"Could have fooled me," came the reply. "If you knew what you were doing, this guy wouldn't have gotten off the first time around."

If Kay's hand hadn't landed on my shoulder right at that moment, I had no doubts that I'd have gone over there and hit him. As it was, Kay had followed me into the precinct when I hadn't come out as soon as I'd promised I'd would, and had showed up just in time to hear this last part of the argument. Before I could speak or even move, she did.

"If you knew what we did about this case, you wouldn't sleep for a month." she said. "You'd be driving yourself up the wall trying to find something, anything, to help you break the case, to the point where you'd come that close to eating your gun."

I figured then as the last word left her mouth that I should have known she would have been in the squad room the night Abby took my gun from me and drove off into the storm to take it to headquarters. As it was, I wasn't surprised that Abby had told her about it; if she could trust anyone on the first shift other than me, it was definitely Kay. Elliot glanced in her direction, smirking as he let the pen he was holding fall onto his desk.

"You're telling me that idiot over there almost killed himself over this?" he asked, motioning to me. Kay glared at him.

"If you had six kids dead, no leads and an entire city clamoring for answers, you'd think about it, too." she shot back. "You should know as well as we do the sort of effect cases like these have on people."

Silence fell. To be honest, I was surprised that Kay had even said anything, considering the fact that she and Elliot knew next to nothing about each other, save for the fact that she was a Baltimore cop and he a New York one.

"How would you know?" Elliot demanded of her finally. "You've never been in a unit like this."

"And you think Homicide is so much different?" Kay shot back. "More than half of our victims are children. They might not have been abused or tortured, or anything else, but they're still kids."

"Nice to see you Baltimore cops have a heart," Elliot said dryly, and Kay scowled.

"You know, I always thought it was impossible to be a cop _without _a heart," she said icily, "But I think you've just managed to prove me wrong."

"You've got a lot of nerve walking into a squad room that isn't even yours and talking to me that way."

I moved to fire off a sarcastic retort to this, but Kay shook her head in disgust, still scowling.

"He's not worth it, Munch," she said, turning on her heel to leave. "Let's just go." She started walking; I shot Elliot an annoyed look and followed her a few seconds later.

"You want me to go back there an hit him for you?" I asked as we walked out of the precinct and into the cold. Kay glanced at me and shook her head.

"He's an ass," she told me. "I really don't see how you can stand to put up with him."

"I don't," I said. "His partner does, but right now, she's putting up with my partner because I'm working with you." I paused for a moment and then continued. "Sorry you had to see that."

"The hell are you apologizing to me for?" she asked. "If anyone should be apologizing, it's that idiot in there."

I sighed, glancing at her as we walked. "He's usually not that annoying," I said. "He probably still hasn't gotten over being taken off of this case."

"That's no reason to say things like that to you," Kay muttered acidly. "I've got half a mind to walk back there and tell him off."

"I wouldn't, if I were you," I said. "The rate he's going, he'd probably end up hitting you."

"What's to say I wouldn't hit him back?" I looked at her, then, to see if she was serious, but she looked about ready to laugh, so I shook my head, biting my lip to keep from doing so myself.

"I have no doubts that you would," I said, "I'm just telling you it's not a good idea to go back there."

The cell phone residing in my pocket went off then and I froze. Kay stopped in her tracks and turned to look at me as I drew it out and flipped it open, accidentally putting it on a speakerphone setting.

"I was wondering whether or not I'd get an answer." Suddenly it seemed as if the entire city had melted away, and it was only me, Kay and the one talking to us via the phone.

"How did you get this number?" I demanded, and on the other side of the line, Brandon Collins laughed.

"That's for me to know and you to find out, Detective," came the reply. "All I'll tell you right now is that you won't be able to find out exactly where I am."

"You're calling from a pay phone," said Kay, more of a question than a statement, and suddenly Collins' attention was on her.

"You're smarter than I thought you were, Detective Howard," he said. "Of course I'm calling from a pay phone. I'm having too much fun to let you find me now."

"You call this fun?" I asked acidly, before Kay could say anything else. "Tell me something, Collins; what kind of man does it take to kill an innocent child?"

"Not all children are innocent, Detective Munch, you of all people should know that," Collins replied. "Chances are, the ones I've done away with were, but we'll never know that for sure, now, will we?"

"No," Kay said slowly, "We won't. But I have a question for you, Collins, why are you calling us?"

"Why?" There was silence. I wondered for a moment whether or not he'd hung up, but then he continued. "For the same reason you're looking for me."

"We're looking for you because you're a sick, perverted bastard who gets off on murdering little girls," I retorted, "You can hardly say that's the reason why you're calling us."

"You're right, Detective," said Collins, "I can't, but I can tell you that in taking the first New York case as a primary, you've entered into my little game, and you will play by my rules or worse things will come."

"They can't possibly get any worse than they already are," Kay snapped. "What the hell are you playing at?"

"I am playing at nothing," Collins answered. "This is all part of the game. I'm sure you all have received the results on the clue I left you at the last scene?"

"Your prints aren't in the New York system, Collins, they mean nothing," I said. "If you think giving us the runaround like this is going to get you off any easier..."

"Oh, I wouldn't expect it." said Collins. "In fact, I'm expecting the worst that could possibly come to me, which, I'm assuming, is to be the death penalty."

"Of course it is," I muttered sarcastically,"You don't really think this city isn't going to want blood, do you?"

"No, I rather expected that it would," said Collins, "But I have something to tell you that I think might be of utter importance, Detectives, so it would be wise of you to listen."

"Spit it out, then," said Kay. Her tone was impatient, and I knew she was close to losing her temper. Collins must have known it too, but he chose to ignore it.

"I would suggest that from now on, the two of you watch your backs during every waking moment. And I would advise that you tell this to Detective Bayliss and ASA Williams as well." he said. "The stakes in this little game of ours, as I'm sure you already know, have risen. I would hate to see something happen to you. Or, for that matter, Detective Munch, to a member of your family."

There was a click, and then the tone that tells you that your phone's been off the hook for too long. I flipped the cell phone closed and stowed it back in my pocket before turning to look at Kay. Her face was pale. She looked as if she were about to be sick right there in the middle of the sidewalk, but miraculously, she wasn't. Instead she reached out and grabbed my hand in order to keep her balance, and we started to walk again.

"Where are Tim and Abby?" I asked her. "Did you leave them back at the hotel?" She nodded.

"We should..." She swallowed nervously as she faltered, and then continued. "We should tell them what Collins just told us. They'll need to know."

She was right. They _would_ need to know. Instead of crossing the street like we were going to do, we continued on our forward path, towards the hotel that the three of them were staying at. She paused right outside the door, and turned to face me.

"You need to go home, now," she said. "Try not to fight me on it, either, huh? Collins just as good as told us something was going to happen."

A nearby figure watching us caught our attention; Kay stared at him until he looked away and walked into the hotel, presumably because he was staying there, but she still looked suspicious as she continued.

"I'll tell Tim and Abby what we just heard," she said, "And no, I won't leave anything out. I'll tell them everything."

"You sure you're going to be able to handle that by yourself?" I asked skeptically. "You look like you're about ready to be sick."  
"I'm fine," Kay insisted, starting to push me back into the direction we'd just come in. "I just don't like being threatened like that. No one does. I'll get over it."

I wasn't too sure that she would, but I didn't see any point in arguing with her over it, so I bid her goodbye and turned to walk back towards the precinct, where I'd left my car. When I got there, I fished my keys out of my pocket, got in and headed towards home.

* * *

Thankfully, when I got there, the front door was locked. I had never been more relieved about having to pull my keys out of my pocket to get in than I was right then. I hadn't really realized the implications of Collins' statement until Kay had pointed it out in front of the hotel, but now that I did, I was glad that she'd made me come home. The lights were all off, except for one in the kitchen; I walked in and there was Rowan, bent over a number of worksheets that had more than likely been handed in that day.

"You'd think you could leave those for a day or two." I remarked. She dropped her pen, and as it went clattering to the floor, she turned to face me.

"I wish you wouldn't do that," she said mildly, glancing at her watch. "You're home early."

I looked at my own watch then, and saw that she was right; it was only 7:15. The sky was only just starting to darken. I'd been gone all day, but had only gone to the precinct once; the rest of the day was spent around the city, looking for something to help us break this case. Glancing back at Rowan, I pulled out a chair and sat across from her, sighing.

"We couldn't find anything, not that there's really anything to find," I replied. "Figured I might as well come back here."

"Oh." Rowan bent down to retrieve her fallen pen, then looked at the worksheets she still had left to grade and sighed. "Rose called today."

"Yeah? What'd she have to tell you this time?" I asked slowly, unsure of where she was going with this.

"Nothing, really," came the reply, "She just wanted to know how you and Abby are holding up."

"Let me guess," I said dryly, "You told her that neither of us have been sleeping lately."  
"As much as I was tempted to, I didn't," said Rowan, "I told her you were holding up fine, but I don't think she believed me."

"It's in her nature to be suspicious," I replied, trying not to laugh. "Abby and I give her the same excuse all the time."

"Well, you shouldn't," Rowan told me, feigning annoyance. "She was really worked up about it. Told me if she didn't hear from either one of you soon, she was going to come up here."

"I wouldn't put it past her," I said. "I told Abby to call her sometime soon; hopefully she'll actually listen to me for once." Rowan laughed.

"I don't see that happening anytime soon." She sighed and leaned back in her seat, glancing down at the papers spread out over the table. "I'm starting to think I should just give up on this."

"You know, it's not exactly a requirement for you to have these papers back to your students the day after you get them," I said mildly.

"Yeah, I know, but it's easier to just get it out of the way so I don't have to keep worrying about it."

At that moment, I found myself wishing that my job was as 'easy' as hers was; that is to say, easy enough that I could do something and not ever have to worry about it again. As it was, my job was a lot more complicated than hers. I glanced towards the window as rain started to fall, for what seemed like the millionth time since this had all began and sighed.

"Is there anyone you might be able to go and stay with when the weekend comes?" I asked. Rowan glanced at me with raised eyebrows, frowning slightly.

"What for?" she asked.

"Just because," I said vaguely. She gave me a look.

"That's not a good enough answer," she said, "What aren't you telling me?"

What _wasn't_ I telling her? More than she wanted to know. I looked back towards the window, and she pushed at my foot under the table.

"Hey," she said, "Don't clam up on me now, what's going on? You wouldn't be asking me that if there wasn't a reason."

"We got a call today, Kay and I," I replied, somewhat reluctantly. "Our suspect…he got hold of my cell phone number somehow."

"Oh, my God." Rowan's pen fell to the floor again, but she made no moves to retrieve it; rather, she stared at me for a long while before going on. "What all….what all did he say?"

"Empty threats, or so I'd like to think," I replied. "I just…I need to know that there's somewhere you can go if whatever this guy was getting at turns out like I think it will."

"And what exactly do you think it'll turn out like?" Rowan asked. "For God's sake, John, you can't just expect me to leave in the middle of the school year."

"If it means the difference between you ending up alive or dead, then yes, I can, and I will." I said. "This guy…he plays mind games, but sooner or later he ends up doing what he says he's going to do, and he as good as told Kay and me that something might happen to you."

"This is why you were asking me about the door and the window the other night, isn't it?" Rowan demanded. "Why didn't you just tell me then?"

"I didn't know then," I said. She cast an exasperated look in my direction, shaking her head.

"So, what else is there that I don't know about, huh?" she asked. "Is there something going on that I should know about?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I asked. "I just told you everything I know so far."

I hated having to lie to her about this, but I'd already told her more than enough as it was. I had the feeling that Collins knew more about her than he was letting on and if that was the case, I didn't want him knowing any more than he already did.

"There's something going on between you and Kay, isn't there?" I dropped the file that I'd just stated going through at this question and stared across the table in disbelief.

"I can't believe you just asked me that," I said. "You _know_ there isn't anything going on between me and Kay…"

"Do I?" Rowan shot back. "Because I gotta tell you, it sure seems like you two are spending a hell of a lot of time together lately."

"We're working a red-ball case, for God's sake, of course we are!" I exclaimed. "Don't tell me you actually think I'm sleeping with her."

"Well, you know something, for all I know, you might be," Rowan muttered acidly, bending down to retrieve her pen a second time and going back to the worksheets in front of her. "You haven't really been telling me much of anything lately, how the hell am I supposed to know what's going on?"

"There's a reason why I'm not telling you anything," I told her, "If this guy thinks you know anything about these cases, he might…" I trailed off there, not wanting to say it, or even think about it. Then again, I didn't really have a choice, and so I went on. "He might kill you."

"What the hell would he want to kill me for?" Rowan asked sarcastically, "I'm not the one who's after him."

"Do you think he cares?" I demanded, staring at her incredulously. "Five murders have taken place in the past month or so, Rowan. Five. This guy does _not_ give a damn _who _he kills, he said as much the first time this happened."

"He has no _reason_ to come after me," she started, but I cut her off, frustration evident in my voice.

"He has _every_ reason to come after you," I said. "If he doesn't do it to get himself off, he'll do it to get to me because he _knows_ that any cop's biggest weakness is his family."

Silence fell after this, and Rowan didn't answer. I looked at my watch. It was now exactly eight o'clock. Forty-five minutes had passed since I'd gotten home, and suddenly, I no longer wanted to be there, but at the same time, I didn't want to leave.

"If you're just going to sit there staring at me like that, I'll take this with me back to the school." said Rowan. She looked up from her task at hand and glared at me. "I mean it."

"I never said you didn't," I replied. I rose to my feet and walked out into the living room. Thunder cracked loudly as I did, and I found myself thinking that a thunderstorm was the last thing any of us needed. Then again, a storm like the one that was starting to fall over the city would more than likely prevent another murder, so I was, in a way, quite thankful for it. The sound of pen on paper drifted in from the kitchen, but I ignored it, until it disappeared and I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"What do you want now?" I asked sarcastically, without turning around. "Come to ask me if I'm screwing Abby, too?"

"I'd like to think I know you a little better than that," Rowan replied mildly. I turned to face her, scowling.

"Obviously, you don't, if you really think I would do that to you," I retorted. "What the hell was that, anyway? I have _never_, in all the time that I've known Kay, ever _once _thought about her like that."

"I know," said Rowan, "I know. I just...God, you almost kill me one night, the next, you're not even home, and then I don't see you until now? What am I supposed to think?"

"You're supposed to trust me," I muttered, turning back to look out the window again. "I thought you did."

"I do." Rowan moved so that she was standing beside me and touched my face, gently forcing me to turn so that I was looking at her again. "I just wish you'd talk to me."

"You want to know what happened that night," I said, more of a question than the statement it sounded like. "Why I almost..." I'd figured I wouldn't be able to finish the second half of what I was trying to say, so why I'd even bothered to start was beyond me.

"Only if you want to tell me," Rowan said, moving her hand so that she could take one of mine in both of hers. "You don't want to talk about it, then don't."

And suddenly, Abby's remark from a few nights ago was pushed to the front of mine. Talk to someone, she'd said. She'd meant it, for once, and now...now I had a chance to do so, right in front of me and I was suddenly reluctant to do it.

"Rowan, I..." I sighed, then, for some reason unable to look her in the eye, so I looked out the window a third time. The storm was still going. Lightning flashed, illuminating the living room as it did, and I continued. "I've been...I've been having nightmares. About the case. Ever since it started."

"Oh, my God," she said, for the second time that night. "Is that what happened? Why didn't you say anything?"

I found the question ridiculous, even if I didn't say so. Why hadn't I said anything? The answer was simple enough: I was an adult, and therefore less likely to admit that nightmares were bothering me. I told her as much and she sighed, squeezing my hand as we stood there.

"You're not the only one who has nightmares," she told me quietly. "I just...I wish you would have said something sooner. I don't like seeing you like this and knowing there isn't anything I can do to help you."

That was certainly a first. I'd had more than enough relationships in my life, and I'd been a cop for longer than I cared to think about. And in all that time, I had never once gotten the impression that any one of the women that I'd ever been with really gave a damn about things like that, but this time...this time it was different.

"I know that," I said, "I really do, but I...it's hard for me to talk about. And if...if I've been hurting you because of that, I'm sorry, I don't mean to, but I can't..." I trailed off there, startled to find that I was unable to continue on, but Rowan didn't seem to care, and for that, I was thankful. Silence fell between us and lingered; after a while, she spoke.

"You don't have to," she said. "But if you need to..." She trailed off as well, and squeezed my hand again. Neither of us spoke for a long while after that; rather, we stood there, watching the storm as it raged above us.

And as we did, I couldn't help but think that she'd never given me an answer to the question that had started all of this in the first place...I still didn't know if there was somewhere she could go if things started getting too dangerous for her to stay in the city. That alone scared me more than the thought of there being another murder sometime soon. I decided, however, that I would press the issue again later on, when more information came along..._if_ any more information came along. For now, I was content to just stand there watching the world around me, with Rowan standing there next to me, her head on my shoulder, and my hand clasped in hers.

The power went out, and I jumped, startled by the sudden darkness. Lightning flashed and illuminated the living room again; I glanced towards Rowan, only to find that she was still watching the storm again. I moved to slide an arm around her waist, drawing her closer to me; she leaned back so that her head was resting on my chest and looked up at me.

"You all right?" she asked, and I nodded, mutely, for some reason not trusting myself to say anything more than I already had. We stood there in silence again after the last word left her mouth because of it, but I didn't really care, one way or the other.

What I did care about, however, was figuring out what the next move in this so-called 'game' was going to be.


	13. Chapter 12

A/N: Ok, LSM...here it is...and Ch13 should be up within the week...

* * *

Two days after the conversation with Rowan, I took it upon myself to call Rose, knowing that Abby wouldn't do it herself. The fact that she'd been here for nearly two weeks without doing it had told me as much. I didn't really expect anyone to pick up the phone, considering that it was a Thursday, and eleven o'clock in the morning, but after it rang a few times, someone did.

"You know, I really ought to come up there and kill you," Rose said dryly, pretending to be annoyed. "Is it really that hard to pick up a phone?"

"Excuse me for being in the middle of a red-ball," I replied. "Do you have a minute?"

"Obviously, I do or I would have hung up on you already," said Rose. "What do you want?"

"Well, for one, to tell you to stop worrying, because Abby's fine and I am, too." I said. "And I need to ask you something."

"I'm assuming that this has something to do with the case that you're caught up in," Rose said slowly, more of a question than a statement. I nodded, and then remembered that she couldn't see me.

"Yeah," I said, "It does. Are you planning on leaving Baltimore anytime soon?" Rose sighed.

"I was going to if I hadn't heard from you or Abby by tonight," she admitted, "But I'm not anymore. What's up?"

"I need to know if it's at all possible for Rowan to come and stay with you for a while." I said.

"I can't believe you still think you have to ask me that. Of course she can, God only knows I've got the room for her, and Kai's going to want to see her..." Rose continued, but I was no longer really listening: relief had completely taken over me before she'd even given a real answer.

"...and besides that, I haven't really seen either one of you since you got married. When exactly did you want her to come down here?" Rose asked finally, and suddenly, I was paying attention again.

"Tomorrow," I said, and Rose sighed again.

"You do realize that it's February, right?" she asked. "There are three more months until school lets out."

"I know that," I said, "We've talked about it, and we decided that it's probably not the best idea for her to stay in New York right now."

"You're sure about this, then?" Rose asked. "You really want her to come down here?"

"Yes," I said, "I do. It's..." I paused there, for a moment, and the only sounds I could hear were that of Rose's breathing and my own. "It's the only way I know that she'll be safe."

"What aren't you telling me?" Rose demanded, just as I'd expected she would. "Is someone threatening you?"

"It hardly matters if someone's threatening me, I'm a cop and I could care less," I said dryly. "It's Rowan I'm worried about, and honestly, I'd rather send her to you than take the chance that something will happen here."

"And people wondered why you couldn't seem to hold onto a relationship," said Rose. "I tell you what, though, you had better damn well not forget to call her once she's down here."

"Fine," I said, "I won't. Just...make sure someone's there when she shows up, all right?"

"You know I will. Is Abby with you now or am I going to have to try her cell phone again?"

"She's with me, hold on." Abby had just appeared beside me from out of nowhere; she glanced at my cell phone and made a face.

"That's Rose, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, "It is, and you _are_ going to talk to her this time. You can't put her off forever, Abby."

"Fine. Give me the damn phone already." She took the phone from my hand and walked off; her voice drifted towards me as Kay reappeared, looking thoroughly disgruntled about something.

"What?" I asked slowly. She shook her head, sighing.

"We've got another murder," she said. "Collins got a hold of Tim's cell phone number somehow...called from another pay phone."

"He tell you where this sixth body is?" I asked, and Kay nodded, running a frustrated hand through her hair.

"Another park," she replied. I sighed.

"Figures," I said. "He tell you which one?" Kay nodded, just as Tim appeared, in time to hear the question.

"We should get there now," he said, after telling me exactly which park had been designated for this sixth crime scene. "Where's Abby?"

"Talking to her sister," I replied, "She should be back here in a...never mind" Abby had reappeared, having finished her conversation with Rose, and when she stopped in front of us, she looked at us and frowned.

"There's been another murder, hasn't there?" she asked slowly, and all three of us nodded.

"What are we waiting for?" she said, turning on her heel and heading towards the hotel's exit. "Let's get the hell out there."

* * *

By the time we got to the crime scene, CSU was already there. The body had already gone, but there was no doubt in any of our minds that there had been a charm glued to this child's lips as well.

"Any ID?" Kay asked the technician closest to her, once we'd crossed the tape. He looked up at her, startled, more than likely because he hadn't expected her to ask, and shook his head. She sighed and turned to face me.

"Figures," she said. "There probably isn't anything, just like usual. I'm starting to wonder why CSU even bothers coming anymore."

"So am I," said Tim. He raised his hand to shield his eyes from the sun and looked towards the old merry-go-round at the far side of the park. "I think we've got another one."

"Are you _trying_ to broadcast that we've been hiding these notes or what?" Abby asked in an undertone, careful to make sure that none of the CSU techs could hear her. Tim glanced at her and shook his head, already starting to walk.

"No," he said, "I'm just pointing it out. Come on." He turned back so that he could see where he was going, and the rest of us followed him. When we reached the merry-go-round, Kay reached out and took the bright pink envelope before he could move, pulling it open and drawing out our seventh note.

_"Detective Munch, Detective Howard, it was nice talking to you the other day. I must say, it was quite pleasant to hear your voices again, even though the three of us are on quite different sides of the law. This sixth victim's name is Gabrielle Robinson. She's thirteen. I know, I know, that number is considered by some, including me, to be quite unlucky, but there you have it. There isn't any physical evidence. As you pointed out, there is no record of me in the New York systems. At least, not yet. So I'm quite sure that you have your work cut out for you. I can hear Manhattan clamoring for answers even now. They're starting to lose their faith in the two of you, much like Baltimore did all those years ago. Both cities are wanting justice for their daughters...can you give it to them? Or will you let them down again? Only time will be able to tell you that, dear detectives, as much as I want to do that myself, I cannot. Hopefully, ASA Williams has managed to become competent enough to do her job properly, and the same goes for you, Detective Bayliss. It has been fourteen years since your first case, and you still have not closed it. People know you for that, in case you haven't already figured that out. Maybe with this case, you will be able to redeem yourself, and people will know you for something else. Now, Detectives, since my hand is becoming quite tired, and I am quite sure that the length of this note is starting to annoy you, I shall cut myself off, and say nothing more, other than to tell you to wait for my next call." _

Kay's voice was shaking by the time she was done. I couldn't blame her for it. She folded the note with shaking hands and stowed it into her pocket before looking at us.

"Wait for his next call, he says," she said. "It's like he's doing this to spite us, keeping us on our toes like this, making us think something's going to happen..." She trailed off and then directed her attentions towards me. "Did you talk to Rowan last night?"

"Yes," I said, "I did. I told her I didn't think it was a good idea for her to stay in the city while this is going on, and she's going to Baltimore in the morning."

"I'll bet that went over well," Abby muttered dryly, "She gave you hell about it, didn't she?"

"Would you expect anything less?" I asked in reply, and she shook her head, a humorless smile crossing her face.

"No," she said, "I don't think I would. She's staying with Rose, then?" I nodded, sighing as I looked back towards where CSU was.

"I wouldn't trust her with anyone else, and besides, Kai's there," I said. "Was there an address in that note or not?"

Kay shook her head. "None," she said. "We're going to have to go about this one the hard way."

In a way, I was almost relieved that there hadn't been an address. With the previous five victims, we'd been able to go straight to the families to let them know what had happened. And each time, we'd had to watch as lives were completely torn apart by the knowledge that a loved one had been lost. It was something that all of us, that is to say, Kay, Tim, and I had gone through many times before, but it still bothered us.

"You know, sometimes I think that way's actually easier," I remarked finally. She gave a half-hearted smile at this remark and sighed.

"So do I," she said. "But seven is an odd number. We should probably start looking for another note."

"Already did," said Tim, appearing out of nowhere with a blue envelope in hand. "CSU had it."

"They didn't open it, did they?" I demanded, and he shook his head.

"They were about to," he said, "Abby grabbed it before they could and we took off."

"Great," I said, "Now they're going to think something's up. I wouldn't be surprised if my unit's already said something to IAB."

"I wouldn't put it past that detective you were talking to the other day," said Kay. "If anyone's said anything to your Internal Affairs division it was probably him."

The remark was enough to make me laugh, and I did, which made Kay and Abby both stare at me like I'd suddenly lost it.

"What are you laughing at?" Abby demanded, sounding annoyed. "The _last_ thing we need right now is for any sort of investigation to be started on us..." I cut her off.

"Abby, my own unit probably wants to investigate you, and Kay, and Tim," I said. "If it turns out they've said something to IAB, then so be it. We have nothing to hide."

"Exactly," said Tim, "We don't. So if they know that, then why would they have said anything in the first place?"

"Because they don't like the fact that I'm working with you," I said. "Two of them, anyway. My partner really doesn't give a damn either way, it's the other two that do."

"Don't tell me they're having a fit because they're not in on this case," Kay started, but I cut her off like I'd done to Abby.

"You could put it that way," I said. "That's pretty much why I was arguing with the one you 'met' yesterday."

"Screw that," Abby muttered, "We have more important things to worry about than some unit's having a problem with our being here."

She was right, and I took that comment to mean that the conversation was over, so I didn't continue. Rather, I glanced to where CSU had told us the body was and sighed.

"Six bodies," I said. "Eighteen girls are dead, and all Collins tells us is to wait for his next call."

"We could always try to trace him," Abby pointed out, but Tim shook his head.

"He's been calling from different pay phones around the city," he said, "Even if we tried that, it'd only narrow it down to an area, not an exact location."

"So, either way we look at it, we're screwed," I muttered. "That's great. He's running circles around us and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it."

"At least he's given us something," said Kay. "We know he's going to call again, that there might be another victim and that we need to keep an eye on ourselves."

"And what good is that supposed to do us?" Abby asked sarcastically. "All that's doing is making us more freaked out about this than we already are."

"It's supposed to let us know that we're getting somewhere," Kay shot back. "He didn't call us last time. He waited until we had him to say anything, and then we lost it all because..." She trailed off, glancing towards me almost nervously, but I said nothing. It wouldn't really have made a difference even if I had. A figure moving in the shadows cast by the afternoon sun caught my attention and I turned, raising a hand to shield my eyes from the light.

"Someone's following us," I said, "Look over there." Kay, Tim and Abby turned, looking towards where I'd pointed, and Kay frowned.

"That's the same guy who was watching us outside the coffee shop," she said. "What are the odds that he's been following us ever since then?"

"Better than I'd like to think about," said Tim. "You think he might be how Collins got our cell phone numbers?"

"I wouldn't doubt it," said Abby. She glanced towards Kay, a frown crossing her face as well. "You told me Collins said something about an accomplice?"  
"He might be the one." Kay's eyes had narrowed; she continued to watch the figure, who was now staring dead at her. "I doubt he'd be here, otherwise."

"You know, he could just be one of those reporters that's probably going to come over here and bother us for information once we cross the tape again," I pointed out, but Kay shook her head.

"No," she said, "He's not. You can tell just by looking at him...he's up to something."

"Of course he is," Abby muttered, "Why the hell else would he be taking pictures of us?"

I looked back towards the figure I'd pointed out, and sure enough, he was taking pictures. The camera was kind of hard to miss, and I wondered how I'd done so before.

"I'm starting to think that I should make Rowan head down to Baltimore tonight instead of tomorrow morning," I remarked. Kay glanced at me, still frowning.

"What for?" she asked. "There hasn't been anything to suggest something's going to happen to her."

Not that they knew about, anyway. I decided it was better to just keep what I had found the night we'd first noticed the guy to myself; the last thing any of us needed was to get more upset than we already were, least of all with each other.

"I know," I said vaguely, without looking her in the eye, "I just don't like the idea of her staying here any longer than she has to."

"You do realize that she'll kill you herself if you make her go tonight," said Abby, smirking in my direction. I gave her a look.

"That's beside the point," I said, but as I moved to continue, Kay grabbed my arm and pulled be along with her, so that we were walking to somewhere out of our so-called stalker's line of sight. Tim followed suit, taking Abby and walking off in the other direction. I watched them go and then looked down at Kay.

"What the hell are we doing?" I asked. Kay looked up at me, still frowning slightly as she motioned with her free hand towards the figure. He was still standing a good distance away, just watching us.

"Do you remember that night in the Box, when you and Meldrick beat the hell out of Collins?" she asked. I rolled my eyes; that particular night wasn't exactly one I would be forgetting anytime soon.

"Of course I remember, it's been bothering me for years," I replied. "Why are you asking?"

"Because I recognize that guy," Kay admitted, reluctantly. "I...I didn't say anything until now because I wasn't sure, but now I am. He's the one who shot you and Meldrick."

"And you're only just telling me this now?" I asked. "You should have said something the minute you suspected it was him!"

"I know," said Kay, glaring up at me, "But I didn't want to until I was sure, and now I am."

"So, what exactly is this walking around going to do for us?" I asked. "We can't even see him anymore; he's probably gone."

"He's not gone," said Kay. "Odds are he's waiting to see what we'll do. He's not going to go anywhere.  
"And what exactly are we going to do?" I asked, starting to grow slightly nervous. She looked up at me again, smirking faintly.

"We're going to nail him," she said. "If we can't get him for trying to kill you and Meldrick, we'll get him as an accomplice to first-degree murder."

"You really think these are pre-meditated?" I asked. "I was always under the impression that Collins did it just to get himself off."

"He does," said Kay. "We already know that much. But look at all the cases we've had. Each one is, for lack of a better term, a 'perfect crime'. There's nothing that can tie Collins to any of these murders."

"Unless we get someone to give him up." Suddenly, Kay's reasoning was that much clearer. We continued walking, and after a while, I could see the playground again. The figure that had been watching us was still where he had been, looking in the direction that Tim and Abby had gone, and looking supremely unconcerned with my and Kay's disappearance. She let go of my arm upon noticing this, and looked at me.

"You go that way," she said, motioning, and I realized then that we were behind him. He couldn't see us even if he wanted to; Kay had managed to move us so that we were in the right position to grab him without him even seeing that we were coming. I moved in the direction that she'd pointed, and stopped when she motioned for me to. She moved forward then, quickly, drawing a pair of handcuffs from her belt.

"Been a while, hasn't it?" she asked loudly. The figure jumped and when he turned to see who was behind him, he froze, and then smirked.

"Detective Howard," he said coldly. "Nice to see you again." Kay shook her head in disgust, forcing him up against the tree behind them and searching him for any sort of weapons. When she didn't find any, she cuffed him, and motioned for me to come over, so I did.

"You want to, or should I?" she asked. I didn't say anything. She looked at me for a long moment and shook her head again before turning back to our new suspect.

"Kyle Walker, under arrest for the attempted murder of two Baltimore City police officers," she said icily. "You have the right to remain silent; anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law..."

She continued on, but I was no longer listening...in fact, I hadn't really been listening since she'd declared him under arrest for attempted murder. I wondered vaguely as Tim and Abby reappeared whether or not she was actually allowed to arrest him for something like that, considering we weren't exactly in Baltimore, but I figured that she knew what she was doing, so I left well enough alone.

"You know, I'm thinking Collins was right," Kyle spat at me as Kay yanked him backwards so that we could leave. "I should've finished you and Detective Lewis off when I had the chance."

"I don't want to hear another word out of you," Kay snapped, keeping a firm grip on him as we walked. Tim and Abby walked on either side of us, to make sure that he couldn't get anywhere. Once we reached the parking lot, she shoved him into the back of one of the cars and slammed the door.

"Well," she said, sounding slightly cheerful, "Maybe we'll actually get somewhere now."

"I ought to call one of the other State's Attorneys who was around the first time," Abby remarked, casting a disgusted look at Kyle, "They'll want to extradite."

"There's Baltimore for you," said Tim. "They _would_ want blood." Kay glanced at him and shook her head.

"For two cops who were nearly murdered?" she asked. "I would think so. Give me the keys." She held her hand out to me; I handed her the keyring that I'd drawn out of my pocket without noticing. She got into the car on the driver's side, and Abby glanced at me for a long moment before speaking.

"You all right?" she asked. I nodded wordlessly, somehow unable to explain the sudden relief that had settled over me. But it still didn't change the fact that tomorrow, Rowan was going to Baltimore, whether I had to drag her down there myself or not. Collins was still out there...there was still a chance that something could happen to her. And if something happened to any one of the four of us, that is to say, me, Kay, Tim and Abby...I didn't want her around to know about it, as selfish as it sounded.

Kay motioned for me to get in the car, and so I did, careful to ignore Kyle, sitting in the backseat, for fear of what I'd do if I didn't. He said nothing, glaring at me via the rearview mirror as we left, Tim and Abby following behind us. It was when the light turned red that Kay decided she could drive with one hand, and reached out with her newly-freed one to take one of mine.

"Hey," she said in an undertone, so that Kyle wouldn't be able to hear. "Don't worry about this, all right? All you have to think about is that we're this much closer to nailing Collins this time around."

She had a point, and I knew it, so I squeezed her hand, offering up a half-hearted smile before turning to face the road ahead of us as the light turned green, even though I wasn't the one driving. I closed my eyes, and when they opened again, we were in the parking lot at the back of the precinct. Kay was yanking Kyle out of the car and shoving him towards the back entrance. I got out and followed them.

We stopped just short of the squad room. Kyle glanced between us, still wearing a self-satisfied smirk that I would have given anything to be able to wipe off his face, and I would have...if Elliot, Olivia and Fin hadn't been in the squad room, looking dead at me.

"You all right?" Kay asked, and as tempted as I was to be annoyed with her, having heard that question more than I cared to remember in the days that had gone by since this had begun, I wasn't, and I nodded. She offered up the same half-hearted smile I had a while before and shoved Kyle into the squad room.

"Who the hell is that?" Olivia asked, glancing at me, rather than at Kay, who rolled her eyes, choosing to ignore it as she answered, noticing that I, for some reason, was unable to speak.

"A suspect," she said bluntly. "We don't really have anywhere else to go, so I'd appreciate it if we could use your interrogation room."

Elliot and Olivia exchanged glances before looking back at us, both of them half-ready to retort, but Fin spoke before they could.

"I don't see why you can't," he said, "Not like any of us are in there right now." He rose to his feet and motioned for Kay to follow him; she did, and they disappeared from view right as Tim and Abby appeared behind me.

"Where's Kay going?" Tim asked. I motioned in the direction that she and Fin had just walked.

"Interrogation room," I said, finally regaining my voice. "I think...I think it'd be best if you went in there with her."

"You sure?" Tim asked, and I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything more than I already had. He walked off in the direction that I'd just pointed as Fin appeared again, sitting at his desk without saying anything to me, not that I cared.

Abby put a hand on my shoulder and I jumped, having forgotten that she was there.

"You want to go?" she asked. I shook my head and walked forward, ignoring my colleagues' stares as I led her back towards the interrogation rooms. It was obvious which one Kay and Tim were in, even without the intercom system on. I came to a halt beside the one-way mirror and stared in, surprised to feel my spirits lifting.

Kay was right. I didn't need to think about this as catching the man who'd once tried to kill me...I needed to think about it as getting one step closer to nailing the one we were really after. So I did.

With this in mind, I reached out to turn the intercom system on, and as three voices came flooding towards me, I listened, feeling better than I had in weeks.


	14. Chapter 13

A/N: Yay! Ch.13 finally finished and another explanation for those notes will probably come in the next chapter, and it's nearly midnight so I'm just going to shut up now...

* * *

A few days after we nailed Walker, Casey had him arraigned as an accomplice to first-degree murder…among other things. The charges for which he'd originally been arrested, or so she told us, would still hold up: Baltimore was looking to have him extradited to them once we were done with him in New York. It didn't really make sense to me, at least not at first; Abby took it upon herself to explain that it was because in the event that he got a walk here, there was still a chance that he'd serve time.

"We read him his rights, he confessed," said Kay, once Abby had cut herself off. "If he walks here, I'll eat my gun."

"No, you won't," I told her. "No one's going to eat their gun, and I don't want to hear any more about it, either."

"Of course you don't," Abby muttered sarcastically, "But she has a point. There's no way he should get a walk."

"You'd be surprised about the amount of crap these juries are willing to swallow." Casey's voice broke into our conversation and we looked up to find her standing in the door of the interview room, which had somehow been turned into our makeshift squad room.

"You look like you've swallowed a lemon," said Tim, "What's wrong?" Casey sighed and stepped into the room, closing the door behind her.

"Walker and his attorney are looking to dismiss the case," she said.

"What?" Kay demanded loudly. "That's ridiculous. There is no way in _hell_ those charges should be dropped."

"I know," said Casey, "Believe me, I know. But they're claiming that there isn't any evidence linking him to the…" Abby cut her off.

"The note," she said, "Show her the note."

Our seventh murder had been discovered the day after we'd arrested Walker; with the body had been our ninth and tenth notes. I shuffled through the paperwork I'd left to build up and pulled a dark green envelope from the middle. Casey eyed it and then me before shaking her head.

"How many of those are there, really?" she asked, and the four of us exchanged glances.

"Ten," I said finally, reluctantly. "There are ten of them."

"Does the rest of the unit know?" Casey asked. I shook my head.

"I wasn't aware they needed to; they're not working this case." I said.

"Yeah, well…now would be a good time to tell at least one of them," said Casey. "Technically, this isn't Baltimore's case anymore, so if anyone would know about these notes, it's this unit. The defense might be able to screw us over on this alone if they find out no one else knew."

"They won't if people can keep their mouths shut," said Abby. "Any suggestions?"

Casey sighed. "The notes need to be shown to the others, preferably as soon as possible. That's really all I can tell you." She reached out and took the envelope from my hands before continuing. "You're sure this one implicates Collins in all of this?"

"Yeah, we're sure," said Tim, "It's kind of obvious once you read it."

"Fine," said Casey. She paused and looked at her watch, sighing before continuing on. "I'll see you all tomorrow."

She turned and left the room, careful to close the door again behind her. Abby looked at me and sighed.

"She's right, you know," she said, "We do need to show these notes to your unit." I let the pen I was holding fall to the table and reached for the other seven envelopes that had been hidden from Casey's view.

"Do you have any idea what they're going to do to me if they find out about this?" I asked. "They already think we're going about this the wrong way as it is."

"Screw them for a minute and think about the case," said Abby. "What would you rather have, hell from this unit or Collins and Walker on the streets?"

She had a point. It wasn't often that we got second chances in a job like ours, but when we did…if we'd screwed it up the first time, we made it a point not to do it a second time.

"All right," I said, "All right. I'll…I'll show them the notes." I rose to my feet, taking the envelopes off of the table and headed towards the door, but before I could open it, Kay spoke. I turned to face her just as she stuck her cell phone back into her pocket.

"That was Collins," she said. "There's been another murder. Same location as last time." She motioned out towards the squad room. "You might want to bring them back on this."

That was the _last_ thing I'd wanted to hear, and I told her so, but she gave me a look, rising to her feet and motioning for Tim to come with her.

"Eight murders in two months," she said. "Do you hear that? Eight. In two months. If we haven't gotten anywhere with just the four of us working this, we're probably not going to. The least you can do is ask them to help us out."

"What the hell makes you think they're going to want to?" I asked. "They're already pissed off enough as it is. This is going to make it worse."

"The only thing that's going to make it worse is Walker getting off on these charges," said Abby, fixing me with a look that I'd gotten from Rose one too many times before. "Just ask. If they say no, then so be it. If they say yes, fill them in. It's that easy."

If she honestly thought it was going to be easy, she had another thing coming. I shook my head without saying anything and pulled the door open, moving so that Kay and Tim could leave before heading to the squad room. Abby remained where she was, which, considering, was probably a good thing.

"Don't tell me," Elliot said loudly when I walked in, "They're starting to get tired of you, too."

"I didn't ask for your sarcasm," I retorted, before Fin or Olivia could say anything. "I need to talk to you guys."

"What could you possibly want to talk to us about?" Olivia asked in reply. "Thought you had this under control."

"Yeah, well, you thought wrong," I snapped, "I don't. But if you don't want to listen, then I can go right back into the interview room and you can forget I even said anything."

"Wait a minute," said Fin. "No one told you to go anywhere, so calm down. What did you want to talk to us about?"

"This case," I admitted, almost inaudibly. "I…we..." I cut myself off there and swallowed, almost nervously before continuing reluctantly. "We need your help."

Dead silence met this statement, and I waited. None of them said anything. Instead, they stared at me like I had a few screws loose. Apparently, coming to them for help after having them pulled at the beginning was too much to ask. Oddly enough, it hurt more than it had the night I'd told them they were being taken off the case. Kay had been wrong; SVU was a lot different than Homicide. At least there was somewhat of a family element when I was still one of the murder police; here, however...I didn't want to think about it.

"You know what, never mind," I said finally. "Just forget I said anything, huh?" I turned to leave the squad room, to head up to the precinct rooftop like all of us had done at one point or another. The envelopes fell from my hands as I did, but even if I'd noticed, I probably wouldn't have cared.

The cold air hit me as soon as I pushed the rooftop access door open again; above me, clouds had filled the sky for what seemed like the millionth time since this had all begun. It looked like it was going to rain, and I hadn't brought a coat up with me, but I could have cared less. It was starting to get to the point where I didn't care about much of anything anymore.

"What do you want from me?" I demanded suddenly, glaring up at the sky as raindrops started to fall. "Haven't I been through enough already?"

Even before the last word left my mouth, I knew that what I was saying was completely selfish. _I_ hadn't really been through anything, and yet here I was, standing on the rooftop, acting like I was the victim, when there were twelve girls for whom justice had not yet been served, and eight for whom justice was still, hopefully, to come. The rain started to pick up, but I remained where I was. No answer came, not that I expected one. I turned and stared down at the city below me, watching the people pass me by. It seemed ironic, almost, as if the people were frightened by what was happening and yet unafraid to let their children roam the streets, with or without them. I must have counted more than twenty kids down there on their own before I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to find that Fin had come up after me.

"What do you want?" I asked. "I told you to forget it."

"That ain't how it works," he replied. "You asked for help, and you're going to get it, whether you like it or not."

"That makes one of you," I said. "I still don't see why Elliot and Olivia can't get the hell over the fact that I had them pulled."

"You know, it took me a while to get over it too," Fin admitted, looking me dead in the eye. "Figured it wasn't worth my time to sit there and get pissed off at you for it."  
"Yeah, well, maybe you should just stick with them," I remarked, motioning down to the squad room. "I highly doubt Cragen wants the four of us at each other's throats again."

"You're my partner. What makes you think I'm going to sit there and let you take this alone when you just asked for help?"

"I changed my mind. We don't need it. Why don't you just go back into the squad room and leave me the hell alone?"  
"What are the odds that you'll do something stupid if I do?" Startled by the question, I stared at him for a long while without saying anything.

"Don't act like you didn't hear me," Fin said finally. "This ain't something you can just ignore."

I was half-tempted at this point to tell him that he'd be surprised at the things I could convince myself to ignore, but I didn't. Instead, I turned back to face the city.

"I don't want to talk about it, all right?" I said. "Just let it drop."

"No," came the reply, and I was suddenly strongly reminded that my partner was as stubborn as I was, if not more, as he continued. "I'm not going to let it drop. Answer the question."

"I don't know, Fin!" I exclaimed, turning back to glare at him. "Why do you even give a damn? Last thing you said to me before this mess got started was that I 'got on your damn nerves'. Why would it matter to you whether or not I was dead?"

"I've already lost one partner," Fin retorted, "I'm not looking to lose another one. You might get on my nerves, but that doesn't mean I don't care about you."

Well. That was certainly something. I had always been under the impression that the only reason Fin really tolerated me was because we'd been 'forced' to work together. But I realized then as I looked him in the eye that he'd probably been watching me ever since this case began, just to make sure nothing happened to me, whether by my own hand or someone else's.

"How long have you been keeping an eye on me?" I asked, finally breaking the silence that had fallen.

"Since you asked for us to be pulled," Fin admitted. "Cragen called me into his office when I went back to the squad room; told me to watch you, make sure nothing happened."

"And you agreed of your own volition?" I asked, looking at him over my glasses. He sighed and moved so that he was leaning back against the guardrail, looking back at me.

"Yeah," he said, "I did." Silence fell again. The sounds of the city drifted up towards us, and what seemed like forever passed before he spoke again.

"I talked to Detective Howard," he said, "She told me…told me the guy you all brought in the other day was the one who shot you."

"He was," I said, "Or so Kay tells me. I never saw him; neither did Meldrick. Neither one of us remember anything from that day."

"What do you remember?" Fin asked. I turned to stare down at the city, to find something to concentrate on so I wouldn't lose my nerve and stop talking.

"Nothing, really," I said. "I didn't see anything…Walker shot us from behind. I remember feeling this sharp pain in my back, but that's it. Next thing I knew, I was waking up in the hospital with Kay and Lieutenant Giardello standing over me. We'd lost our guy."

"But you went back," said Fin. "You can't tell me the department didn't at least offer you a transfer out of Homicide."

"They did," I said. "I wouldn't take it. Meldrick wouldn't, either. We come back after getting medically cleared, two weeks later, Kay nails our guy again. She talks Gee into letting Meldrick and me handle the interrogation…we beat a confession out of him."

"And it got thrown out in court," said Fin. I nodded wordlessly, not trusting myself to say anymore than I already had, especially since I'd already told him this once before. The rain continued to fall in steady sheets; both of us were soaking now, but neither of us moved, and finally, I went on.

"They say no one ever forgets the first case they work," I said wryly. "Twenty-four years, and I'm still trying."

"How many murders were there?" Fin asked, and I sighed, still staring down at the sidewalks.

"Twelve," I said, almost inaudibly. "There were twelve of them. The youngest...wasn't even a year old."

"What made you decide you need us back on this?" Fin asked. "You wouldn't have said anything if you _didn't_ need us."

"There have been eight murders," I said. "Eight. It's been two months, and we have next to nothing. I'm not _asking_ you guys for help, I'm _begging_ you."

No answer came, not that I'd really expected one. Fin probably knew better than anyone else how stubborn I could be when I wanted to, and now here I was, quite literally, begging him and the other two to take this case up again. It was a long shot, and I knew it, but I no longer had any other choice.

"You really are serious, aren't you?" Fin asked, and I sighed.

"Yeah," I said, "I am. This case…" I paused and closed my eyes, gripping the guardrail so hard that my knuckles turned white before continuing. "When I landed this in '82, we thought it was just a one-time thing…and then another girl was murdered, and then another….the whole shift was on it by the time Meldrick and I got shot. It wasn't something that two or three detectives could do on their own."

"What made you think this time was different?" Fin asked.

"I don't know," I admitted. "I tried convincing myself it wasn't the same guy, but then there was a note with the second body…"

"What note?" Fin asked, and I looked at him, sighing again.

"There have been notes with every body," I said heavily. "There are ten so far. Every time there's an odd numbered body, there are two notes."

"The others know about them?" Fin asked. I nodded.

"Sometimes I found them, sometimes they found them. Casey came in and told us that Walker's attorney was looking to have the charges dropped because we didn't have any direct evidence linking him to the crimes, so we told her about them." I said.

"She told you to tell the rest of us about them, didn't she?" Fin asked. I nodded again.

"Abby said the same thing," I replied. "Basically what they said is that since this technically isn't Baltimore's problem, this unit needed to know about the notes so the defense couldn't screw us over."

"Were you planning on listening to them or were you just gonna blow them off?" Fin asked. I gave him a look.

"I would have said something back in the squad room if Elliot and Olivia could have managed to let go of whatever problems they currently have with me." I said. "I don't even have them with me; I think I dropped them in the squad room."

"Leave 'em there, then," said Fin. "We're going to have to know about them anyways. But do you mind letting me know what's in them?"

"Taunts," I said. "Comments about how there's the blood of twenty girls on my hands…one of the notes re-opened Bayliss' first red-ball….that's pretty much it."

"Nothing that might get them thrown out when this goes to court?" Fin asked.

"_If_ this goes to court, you mean," I said. "And no, there's nothing that could get them thrown out…at least, not that I'm aware of."

"Then you should be fine this time," said Fin. "I'm no lawyer, but if there's nothing to get them thrown out…" I offered up a faint smile and glanced at my watch to find that it was nearing 11:30 at night.

"We should probably go back inside," I said. "The rate we're going, we're probably going to wake up with a cold tomorrow morning." I turned and moved towards the rooftop access door, pulling it open and walking inside. He followed and the door echoed behind us as it slammed closed. Neither of us said anything on our way back to the squad room; when we got there, he went to his desk, and I headed back towards the interview room.

"I was wondering where you'd gotten off to," Abby remarked, looking up at me and yawning, covering her mouth with her hand. "I was about to come after you."

"I'm sure," I said. "Tim and Kay come back yet?" Abby nodded.

"Sent 'em to the hotel to get some sleep; God only knows they could use it. I'm about to head over there myself."

"You want me to take you?" I asked. "It's raining pretty hard out there." She gave me an appraising look and laughed.

"Yeah, I can tell," she said. "God, John, whatever happened to umbrellas?"

"I'd have taken one with me if I'd expected to get poured on," I replied, "Do you want me to take you or not?"

"That'd be nice." She closed the file in front of her and reached for her coat before rising to her feet. "You should probably head home yourself."

"And here I was thinking I'd be able to go through these files again," I said as we left the interview room. She smirked.

"Rose will have my head, and so will Rowan," she said, "And you know it, so do me a favor and just go home, huh?"

"All right," I said, "All right. I'll go home." I pushed the precinct doors open and we stepped out into the rain; Abby stopped in her tracks and looked up at me for a long while before speaking.

"You sure you're ok?" she asked. I nodded.

"I'm fine," I said. "Let's just go, all right?" She nodded and said nothing; about twenty minutes later, I was dropping her off in front of the hotel she and the other two had been staying at.

"I'd better not hear about you going out and getting drunk tonight," she told me bluntly as she headed inside. "Go home."

"There isn't anywhere I'd rather be," I replied dryly. She gave me a look.

"I mean it," she said. "Go home, go to sleep, and if I see you here before ten tomorrow morning, I'm gonna have to smack you."

"You sound like Rose," I said mildly, "Go inside, Abby, you'll get yourself sick."

"Promise me you'll go straight home," came the reply, and I sighed.

"I promise," I said. "You happy?"

"No." Abby grinned and turned away from me to head inside before turning to call over her shoulder. "You'd better not show up before ten."

"Trust me," I said, "I won't." She disappeared inside and I waited until I could no longer see her before leaving to head for home, like she'd just made me promise. I couldn't help but seriously consider breaking said promise. There wasn't anyone home to tell the difference, anyway.

My cell phone rang right asI reached my apartment building; I flipped it open and Abby's voice came floating towards me.

"You'd better be somewhere near home," she told me.

"Thought you were going to sleep," I replied.

"Yeah, well, if you're not going to keep an eye on yourself, who will?" said Abby. "You're on your way home, right?"

"I'm actually about to walk inside," I said. "Just go to sleep already. I'll see you in the morning."

"Fine." said Abby. "'Night." She hung up before I could reply; I closed the cell phone and stowed it back into my pocket before pulling out my keys, unlocking the door and walking inside. All of the lights were off. I didn't bother turning any of them on as I made my way back towards the bedroom; it wasn't as if I didn't already know the place by heart. I didn't bother with changing, either. Instead I kicked off my shoes and loosened my tie before falling backwards onto the bed.

Shadows danced on the ceiling above me, made slightly blurry by the rain that was falling and the fact that I'd taken my glasses off. I resigned myself then, to watching them, until I finally managed to make myself fall asleep.


	15. Chapter 14

A/N: Ha! It works today! Anyways...yeah. That was random. And I'm currently working on ch.15 so that should be here sometime soon, and...oh. I have nothing else to say...

* * *

"You know, Detectives, I really don't see why you bothered coming. You know as well as I do that these ridiculous charges will never hold up."

Kay and I exchanged glances before sitting down opposite Walker; he shook his head in amusement, smirking as he continued.

"Besides that," he said, "Do you really think it will matter either way? Baltimore watched you fall the first time…they're probably waiting for it again."

"Shut your mouth." Kay spoke before I could, sounding for all the world as if she were perfectly composed…to the untrained ear, that is. "You're awfully cocky for someone who's sitting in prison, you know that?"

"Detective Howard, it will only be a matter of time before I am cleared of any wrongdoing, and then the two of you will be without a case. There is no physical evidence tying me to any of this." Walker replied, just as evenly.

I really hadn't seen the point of coming here in the first place. In fact, if Kay hadn't threatened to tell my partner the _real_ reason I'd missed the sergeant's exam in '95, I wouldn't have come. As it was, she had, and I'd been forced to come along with her.

"That last note Collins left us as good as nails you to the wall," said Kay, her voice breaking into my line of thought. "He's gonna let you take the fall for this."

"Actually, Detective, I hate to disappoint you, but neither Brandon Collins nor I will be taking the fall for this." said Walker. "That prosecutor you've got on this case looks as if she's hardly out of law school. How long do you think it will take to get her so confused that the judge grants a mistrial when it's asked for?"

"I'll have you know that Casey Novak is one of the best prosecutors I've ever worked with," I said icily, somehow managing to find my voice. "If anyone needs a few years of law school, it's you."

"Ah, he speaks." Walker turned to face me, still smirking. "I must admit, I was rather surprised to see you here, considering."

"Considering what?" Kay demanded, leaning towards him. "I'd watch that mouth if I were you, Walker. You're in enough trouble as it is."

"Might I ask the reason for your visit?" Walker asked, choosing to ignore her comment. His eyes were still on me. I could see Kay watching me out of the corner of her eye, waiting to see what I would do, and for a minute, I considered just reaching forward and hitting Walker, but I didn't.

"We came to see how you like it here," I said finally, acidly. "What's it like, knowing you're never going to know freedom again?"

"I wouldn't be too sure of that if I were you," said Walker. "You're lucky I'm not fighting this any more than I already have. Technically, I shouldn't even be here; Detective Howard is not employed by the NYPD."

He was right, and both of us knew it. We _were_ lucky he hadn't contested the arrest any further. But if he honestly thought that Collins _wouldn't_ let him take the fall alone, he was wrong. The only way we were going to be able to nail Collins this time around was if we got him to turn.

"Fine," said Kay, "We'll give you that. I'm not NYPD. But that still doesn't change the fact that you're an accomplice in twenty murders, not to mention the fact that you were paid to try and murder two cops twenty-four years ago."

"There is a statute of limitations on those types of charges, is there not?" Walker asked, shifting slightly in his seat.

"No," I said, "There's not. Either way you look at it, you're screwed, Walker. The best thing you can do for yourself right now is help us."

"Help you bring me down for murders I didn't commit?" Walker shook his head in disgust. "I think not."

"As far as we're concerned, you _did_ commit these murders," Kay shot back. "Until we find Collins, this is on _you._"

It amazed me sometimes, the effect that a few words could have on a person. When Walker looked us both in the eye this time, it was almost as if he were seeing us clearly for the first time since this had all begun….like he finally understood that things weren't really as he thought they were. He appeared to be contemplating what he'd just been told, but as always, there wasn't any telling. He was just like Collins, in the way that no one ever knew what he was thinking until he voiced it.

"I no longer care to continue on with this conversation," he said finally, his voice startling me back in to reality. "For the record, this is the only time I will speak to you without an attorney."

Kay rose to her feet and pulled me along with her, casting a contemptuous look in Walker's direction.

"You're digging your own grave, Walker," she told him flatly. "You start taking this route, there isn't any turning back."

"I wasn't expecting a way out, nor do I want one," Walker retorted. "I'll thank the two of you to speak to my attorneys if you have anything else you wish to say to me."

Speaking to him again wasn't likely, at least, as far as I was concerned; Kay could talk to him all she wanted. It still wouldn't get us anywhere. We left the prison and started on our way back to the city in silence. Once we were back in Manhattan, and on the road, Kay glanced over at me as she drove and sighed.

"That went well," she said. Had I not known better, I'd have probably snapped at her for that remark, but I did, and I knew that it was her way of trying to deal with this latest development, so I said nothing and she continued.

"Why do I get the feeling that you're this close to telling me I should've just made Tim come with me?" she asked. I sighed.

"Because I was going to," I admitted. "But then I realized that if I'd sent Tim with you, you'd have probably gotten lost."

"I'm pretty sure I know how to ask directions," Kay said dryly. She trailed off for a moment and shook her head before going on. "It probably would've been easier if I'd made him come with me, though."

I wasn't going to argue with her on that. She knew full well the only reason I'd come was because she'd threatened me with that story, and I could tell she was starting to regret having done that. Then again, I'd done the same thing to her on many occasions, though with different stories, so I figured I'd had it coming in the first place.

"I doubt it," I said finally. "Ever since we got that note tying this round to Adena Watson, he's been kind of…"

"Out there?" said Kay, finishing my sentence. I nodded and went on.

"Yeah," I said. "One can hardly blame him for it, though, considering. I think something like that would have this effect on anyone."

"He's going to have to get over it," said Kay. "He turns this into a personal vendetta, we're screwed."

"I'm pretty sure he knows that," I said. "He's not going to make it personal, and if he does, he's not the only one."

"Well, try not to make it obvious, then." Kay sighed and ran a hand through her hair as we came to a red light before glancing over at me. "That's the surest way to get this messed up."

"I'd like to think that I've been a cop long enough to know how to do my job," I said.

"No one's going to argue with you on that point," Kay remarked, smirking. Silence fell and lingered for a few seconds before she went on. "Walker doesn't want to talk, so we're going to have to find Collins another way."

"Do you have any idea how big this city is?" I asked. "There are five boroughs, Kay. Five. Even if Collins is in _this_ particular borough, it'll take at least a week to find him, and that's _if_ we can get anything to work with."

"We have something to work with," said Kay, choosing to ignore my comments. "All we have to do is trace his next call."

"He's been calling from a pay phone," I pointed out. "Even if we wanted to, we wouldn't be able to figure out exactly which one he'd been using."

But we could narrow it down to an area. Might not tell us where he's been getting his victims from, but at least it'll give us something."

"So we wait." I leaned back in the seat as the light turned green and shook my head. "We could have three, four more victims by the time he calls again."

The month had one more day until it was over. But that didn't mean Collins wouldn't decide to escalate again, and Kay knew it as well as I did, so she said nothing for a while. When she finally spoke again, we had reached a second red light.

"What else can we do?" she asked. "You're the one that said waiting was all we had. Collins knows he's got us in the palm of his hand right now. He's starting to get ahead of himself. He'll slip."

That was what our entire case had been based on, both this time and the first. It hadn't gotten us anywhere twenty-four years ago, and I doubted it was going to get us anywhere now. Then again, maybe it would. Neither of us could see into the future; all we could do was hope. The only problem with that was that hope wasn't exactly the best course of action.

"Collins has reached his 'quota' for the month," Kay said finally, her voice laced with a note of disgust that I didn't miss. "He'll wait. He won't want to risk anything."

We had reached the precinct by this point. I got out of the car and started inside; she followed me, frowning slightly.

"Hold it." She moved in front of the door before I could pull it open and held out her arm. "You're not going in there until you talk to me."

"What is there to talk about?" I asked impatiently. Kay gave me a look.

"Everything," she said. "You've been on pins and needles ever since you sent Rowan to Baltimore about four weeks ago, and I want to know what's going on with you."

She wanted to know what was going on. Figured. Abby had probably mentioned that I hadn't talked to her, and so now Kay was going to keep us both out here in the cold until she got a 'confession' from me. That was one of the things I hated about working with them; they always seemed to know when something was wrong, even when no one around them had ever said anything.

"I don't feel like having this conversation with you," I told her finally. "There is _nothing_ going on with me."

"So you say," Kay retorted. "Don't give me the runaround or I'll beat it out of you."

I had the feeling that she would. But I still didn't want to talk to her. Odds were that if I did, I'd be making things worse than they already were, and if there was anything I _didn't_ want, that was it. If it had been under any other circumstances, I probably would have just told myself that I was being paranoid, but somehow, it didn't feel like that.

"You remember that night about three days ago, when we decided to ask my unit to help us out?" I asked finally and Kay moved slightly away from the doors, nodding slowly.

"Yeah. Collins called in our eighth murder that night," she said. "You went to ask the unit about helping us; Tim and I left, Abby stayed in the interview room. Why?"

"I went up to the precinct rooftop that night," I said. "Started raining…my partner came up after me. We got into a discussion about the first time, then about something else, and then we went inside."

"You're not telling me anything, Munch. Where are you going with this?"

"I'm getting there. After we came inside, I went to get Abby, took her back to the hotel…she made me promise to go home, so I did. Woke up the next morning, the bedroom windows were smashed in and open."

"Someone broke in?"

"Well, I'm assuming that's what happened. No one was in the apartment when I went through it and nothing was missing."

"So if nothing happened, why has it been giving you problems?"  
"I think someone's been watching me."

Silence fell after this. Kay looked as if she were this close to laughing at me for saying this, but she didn't. Instead she eyed me for a long moment, as if debating what to say to this, and finally, she came up with something.

"This isn't the first time this has happened, is it?" she asked. I shook my head.

"No," I admitted, "It's not. The first night you saw Walker…I went home and the windows in the living room were open."

"Well, why the hell didn't you say anything before now?" Kay demanded, casting an incredulous look at me. "I saw Walker about a month ago, give or take a week, and you're only just mentioning this?"

"Why do you _think_ I sent Rowan to Baltimore?" I asked in reply. "I didn't do it for _my_ own good. You think I wanted her around here when there could be someone watching?"

"There more than likely _is_ someone watching, and it's more than likely Collins." Kay's voice was suddenly tense, and I could tell she'd just remembered something. "You remember what he said the first time he called, don't you?"

"Another reason why I made Rowan leave," I said. "If he's been watching me, then…"

"Then things just went up another level," said Kay. She turned, pulled the doors open and walked inside; I followed as she continued. "We need to go through your apartment."

* * *

That afternoon found the four of us, Elliot, Olivia and Fin standing in the middle of my apartment with technicians from CSU going through everything.

"You're an idiot," Olivia told me as we stood there, "You should have called the police or something about this."

"I am the police," I said dryly. "One of them, anyway." She gave me a look.

"That's beside the point," she said. "Whoever was in here could've killed you. You're lucky you're still here."

As if I needed to feel any guiltier than I already did. This suspicion of being watched had been there ever since I'd first found the windows opened, not to mention the door unlocked. But I hadn't sent Rowan down to Baltimore then. No, I'd waited for another two weeks before doing that. The way things were turning out, I'd be lucky if she were still alive when this all ended.

"She'll be fine." Abby appeared beside me just as this thought crossed my mind, and I turned to look at her, startled.

"How'd you know what I was thinking?" I asked. She smirked, motioning to my hand.

"You were twisting your ring," she said. "But seriously, you have nothing to worry about. If Collins went back to Baltimore, Kai will probably kick his ass if he tries to get to Rowan."

"How long has she been coming to the squad room? And were you planning on telling me about it?"

"Oh, calm down. She hardly ever has time to come by the squad room. Usually the only time we see her is when she's in the Waterfront."

"I hardly think now's the time to worry about that," Tim said dryly, breaking into our conversation. Abby sighed and ran a hand through her hair, turning to face him.

"Good point," she said. "They find anything yet, or are we all just chasing shadows again?"

"Nothing yet, but we've only been through the entryway, living room, and kitchen. They're about to start on the bedrooms." Tim replied.

"If they find something in there, I'm going to be severely disturbed," said Abby.

"You're not the only one," said Fin. One of the CSU techs motioned towards him and he walked over with Olivia; Elliot glanced at his watch before turning towards where Abby and I were.

"Even if they don't find anything, you should probably go somewhere else tonight," Elliot said finally.

"Why would I go somewhere if they don't find anything?" I asked in reply. "What sense does that make?"

"Whoever broke in could do it again," Elliot answered evenly. "You staying here isn't a good idea."

"I'll say," said Abby, breaking into the debate before it went any further. "Don't turn this into an argument, huh? Just come crash at the hotel with me."

"And have to face another interrogation as to whether or not I'm having an affair?" I asked in reply. "I think not."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, John, I hardly think Rowan meant it, and if you're gonna be stubborn about it, I'll just kick your ass and make you come with me."

I heard laughter behind us and turned to find Fin and Olivia standing there, smirking.

"You heard her," said Olivia, "She'll kick your ass if you don't." I cast a look of mock annoyance in her direction and sighed.

"I wouldn't put it past her," I said. "But I'm not having this conversation right now, so we'll worry about it later." Abby snorted.

"Yes, if you can be persuaded to remember it later," she said. "I don't care what you have to say about it, you're not staying here tonight."

"The matter is closed, Abby," I said. "You've already managed to make that quite clear."

Again, there was laughter. At least, until we noticed the CSU tech standing in front of us looking more than slightly bothered.

"You might want to come in here," she said. All seven of us exchanged glances and followed her back into my bedroom. Spread out on the floor was surveillance equipment that definitely wasn't any of theirs.

"I'm assuming this isn't yours," the technician said, turning to face me. I shook my head. If I'd thought I was being paranoid before, this new discovery had definitely just proved me wrong.

"Well, that settles it," Abby said finally. "You are _definitely_ not staying here." She turned to face the technician and sighed. "There any way you can find out how long these have been here, what they've got on them?"

"TARU might be able to," the technician replied, "We'll take it down to their lab, see if they can get anything." She turned to face me. "Your friends are right, Detective. You shouldn't stay here."

As if I needed her to tell me that. If I'd have given Abby any more trouble than I already had, she wouldn't have hesitated to hit me, regardless of whether or not anyone was watching. And as much as I hated to admit it, all of them were right. I _couldn't_ stay here. Not when Collins had been watching for God only knew how long. As if on cue, Abby's cell phone rang, and she reached for it, flipping it open and putting it on a speakerphone setting.

"Hello?"  
"ASA Williams. It's nice to hear your voice again. I'm assuming that everyone else is with you." Collins' voice filled the bedroom and all of us jumped; Abby scowled.

"I'm sure you already know the answer to that question," she replied icily. "You do realize that stalking is a crime, right?"

"I haven't been _stalking_ anyone, I've merely been watching." said Collins. "It's hardly my fault if you haven't noticed it by now."

The CSU techs had, thankfully, already gone. The last thing we needed was for any of them to be hearing this. For that matter, the last thing _I_ needed was for the rest of the unit to be hearing this. But they were. And now they were all staring at me, looking as if they were torn between wanting to kill me for not saying anything and going after Collins.

"Well, you know what?" Kay said finally. "The game is up. You've gone too far, Collins, and when we nail you, you're gonna wish you'd never come here."

"I seem to remember hearing the same thing when I was in Baltimore, but I don't wish I'd never gone there; in fact, I'm thinking of returning," came the reply.

"Why did you call?" I asked. "The month's not up; if you've killed another girl that'll make five."

"I'm well aware of that, Detective," Collins told me, "And no, there hasn't been another murder. I am simply calling to inquire as to whether or not Walker has said anything to you."

"You ought to know that already; you've got him wrapped around your little finger as it is," Tim muttered sarcastically. "You're calling from another pay phone, I presume?"

"You would presume correctly, then," said Collins. "Trying to trace me isn't going to do any good."

"Stalking us isn't going to do _you_ any good," Abby retorted. "I'm sure you've realized that there are seven of us, now."

"Ah, yes." Collins' voice took on a smug note as he continued. "The renowned Special Victims Unit. I must say, I'm honored."

"Having us after you isn't exactly something that should make you feel 'honored'," Elliot replied slowly. "What are you playing at?"

"I am playing at nothing, Detective Stabler, nor did I count on dealing with anyone other than those who have handled this type of case before, but since I am, the stakes have risen yet again." said Collins. "If the notes I've left you haven't been helping, then I would assume that maybe the lot of you aren't as good at your jobs as you think you are." A clicking sound told us that he'd hung up. Dead silence lingered over us, broken only by the sounds drifting in from the still-open window.

"How does he know who _we_ are?" Olivia asked finally, motioning to herself and then to Elliot and Fin. "We've never even seen him before."

"That doesn't matter," I said. "We didn't even notice Walker following us until about two weeks, maybe longer, after Kay and Tim got here. He's probably known about the three of you since this began."

It wasn't exactly a comforting thought, considering the fact that Collins was the real driving force behind all of this and Walker wasn't talking, but it was all we had. Abby closed her cell phone and shoved it back into her pocket, shaking her head in disgust. Kay looked at her and then sighed, running a hand through her hair as she spoke.

"He's getting desperate," she said. "You can tell just by listening to him; he thinks we're getting close. That's why he's insulting us…he thinks if he can discourage us enough, we'll let it go."

"Let it go?" Elliot asked. "Eight children are dead because of this man; there's no way we're letting it go."

"I didn't think so," said Abby, "But he's right. The notes he's been leaving aren't doing us any good."

"Neither is his calling from a pay-phone, but if it's the same one every time..." Olivia looked at her watch and sighed. "We should probably get out of here. If he comes back, it'll be because he's expecting you to be here."

She started out of the bedroom and towards the entryway; the rest of us exchanged glances and followed her out. Once we were out of the building we split up; Elliot, Olivia and Fin all headed back towards the precinct; Kay, Tim, Abby and I walked off towards a nearby coffee shop, still somewhat startled by all that we'd found out.

"You can go back for your stuff later, but I don't think it's too good of an idea for you to go back right now," said Abby. I nodded wordlessly as we walked inside and she continued. "You should probably call Rowan sometime today."

My thoughts exactly. I hadn't really had the chance to talk to her since she'd gone and now that all of this had come to light, I wanted to. We slid into one of the booths closest to the door in case we needed to get up and leave again; Abby joined into Kay and Tim's conversation and I ignored them, staring out the window at the people passing us by.

This was definitely a lot worse than it had been before. The first time, Collins hadn't been as adept at this as he was now, and he certainly hadn't been stalking us…at least, not consciously. This time, however…I didn't want to think about it, so I took the mug of coffee Abby shoved at me a few minutes later and looked at her.

"You don't happen to have sleeping pills on you, do you?" I asked, looking at her over my glasses. She rolled her eyes.

"The coffee's fine," she said, "I didn't stick anything in it, so just drink it already." She picked up her own mug and took a sip, frowning slightly as she continued. "You know, I'm kind of worried about this."

"Who isn't?" Tim asked in reply, glancing at her over the rim of his mug. "This isn't exactly something you can just let go of."

"I know that," said Abby. "I just…I get the feeling that something's going to happen and we're not going to be ready for it when it does."

"Something's already happened," Kay pointed out. "This happened. You can't tell me you were ready to see this again."

"That's not what I meant," Abby muttered, but Kay didn't hear her. She had turned and started talking to Tim again. I knew what she meant, though. Even if Walker was now in prison, that didn't mean Collins wouldn't try to pull something, and she was right. We wouldn't be ready for it, and it was only because Collins had so far managed to keep us on our toes as to what he was going to do.

With this in mind, I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket, flipped it open and pushed the first number I had on speed dial before getting up and walking outside.


	16. Chapter 15

A/N: Yeah, now it lets me upload...damn computer.

* * *

A few days later, we decided that the only way to find Collins was to stop waiting for Walker to change his mind about talking and go out there and try to find him ourselves. We probably should have gone that way in the first place, but we hadn't, and now…now, we were paying for it. February had faded into March; there had been another murder, and the seven of us had split up. Abby, Kay and I had been assigned to handling any and all of the calls that came in relating to the case. Elliot, Fin, Olivia and Tim had gone in search of Collins.

"Number nine." Abby shook her head in disgust as we crossed the tape and headed over towards where Melinda was, bent over yet another child's body. She heard out footsteps and turned to face us as we stopped just short of her, shaking her head.

"She's about seven," she said heavily. "Cause of death is a gunshot wound to the head."

He hadn't been so violent the first time around, or even with the earlier murders this time. Evidence had shown us that the previous eight had all been drugged with something before he did anything to them. I doubted that we'd find that with this one. Collins had called this one in; he'd sounded annoyed and it was evident that he was only just starting to get pissed off about the fact that we'd nailed Walker. And that irritation was only just starting to be taken out on innocent victims. Our thirteenth note was clasped in this one's hands; Kay slipped a pair of gloves on and bent down to retrieve it, sighing as she straightened.

"Who wants to do the honors?" she asked mildly, and Abby shook her head.

"I'm about ready to be sick as it is," she said. I rolled my eyes in her direction and took the envelope from Kay's hands.

"Here goes nothing," I said. The sound of the envelope tearing seemed to echo, even with the noise around us. I pulled the note from inside and unfolded it before starting to read.

_"Well. It seems you all are a lot better at this than I anticipated. Detective Howard, I must congratulate you on your arrest of Kyle Walker. How does it feel that you are this much closer to nailing the man who shot two of your colleagues? But I digress. I must admit that I am quite annoyed by Walker's capture, can you tell? Detectives, you are doing this to yourselves, I'm afraid. The murders will continue to go on until you catch me, which, honestly I doubt is going to happen. Detective Munch, I must admit that sending your wife back home to Baltimore was a good move, but just so you know: the murder police can't protect her, or your daughter, forever." _

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Suddenly, Abby looked more than slightly frightened. "You don't think he went back to Baltimore?"

"I wouldn't put it past him," said Kay. She pulled the note from my hands and folded it again, shoving it into her pocket before looking at me. "He's baiting you. Just ignore it."

Ignore it. How the hell did she expect me to ignore it? I was half-tempted to take the note back from her and just do away with it so I wouldn't have to face it, but she turned away from me before I could.

"There should be another note," Abby said finally, changing the subject as a wry smirk crossed her face. "Thirteen is an unlucky number."

She walked off in search of another envelope; Kay and I exchanged glances before following.

We ended up going over the entire crime scene twice before finally giving up; there was no fourteenth envelope to be found. It seemed that Collins had finally slipped, and though it hadn't really gotten us anywhere, it was of some comfort. Now we knew for sure that he wasn't as perfect as he thought he was.

"CSU didn't happen to find an ID, did they?" Kay asked finally, and I shook my head.

"They'd have said something if they had," I said. "Looks like we're doing this the hard way, again."

Abby looked at her watch and sighed. "We should probably head back to the precinct," she said. "We might be able to catch up with the others."

"You really think they found anything?" I asked. "It's only been a few hours since we split up." Abby shrugged.

"You never know," she said. "Let's just go. Not like we have anything better to do, anyway."

She started walking off again, in the direction from which we had come in the first place. Kay and I remained where we were, knowing she'd wait for us: I had the keys; it wasn't like she could go anywhere.

"What if he did go back to Baltimore?" I asked as we stood there. "We can't do anything to him if he did."

"He's bluffing," said Kay. "Trying to throw us off. He's in New York, he's just getting desperate."

"What makes you so sure?" I demanded as we started after Abby. "For God's sake, Kay, he just threatened my family…"

"So I'll get a hold of my shift and put two of my best on Rowan and Rose and two more on Kai. No one is going to hurt them."

"I'm starting to think I'd feel better if they were here."

"That'd only make it easier for something to happen." Kay stopped in her tracks and turned, nearly causing me to fall over her as she continued, an amused look crossing her face. "They're fine where they are."

"If something happens to any one of them, it's on your head," I told her. "I mean it, Kay."

"I never said you didn't, nor would I," Kay replied. "Collins is just trying to scare you because he knows you're the only one it's going to work with."

"Well, there's a comforting thought," I muttered sarcastically. "I'm supposed to just sit here and let him mess with my head?"

"You're supposed to ignore him," said Kay. "We're not going to get anywhere if you don't."

"Ignore it," she says," I replied acidly. "How the hell am I supposed to _ignore_ something like that?"

She didn't answer, not that I'd really expected her to. If she thought this particular theory of hers was going to fly with me, she had another thing coming. There was no way in hell I was going to ignore it, or let it go. At least, not until we had Collins in handcuffs. Abby came into view just as Kay opened her mouth to speak again, holding another envelope in her hands.

"He was here," she said quietly. "I didn't…I didn't see him or anything, but this…this definitely wasn't on the windshield when we got here."

This time, Kay grabbed the note before I could move, tearing the envelope open and drawing out our fourteenth note. Her hands were shaking, not that I could really blame her for it.

_"I'm betting at this moment that you're thinking I've forgotten the even numbers thing. Well, I hate to disappoint you, but I haven't; rather, I am still quite convinced that the number thirteen is quite unlucky. For that matter, so is the number nine, but no worry. I doubt you'll be finding me anytime soon. It's nice to know that you're looking, though. I've heard the news, but seven is an odd number, Detectives, and the odds right now are against you. Three of you investigating murders while four of you try to find me? Interesting strategy. I hope that for your sanity, it actually leads you somewhere." _

"I'd love to know how he got this note here without anyone noticing," Abby muttered as Kay finished reading. "The crowd wasn't that big this time…we should have seen him."  
"Unless he's found another lackey. I wouldn't put it past him to have done so when we got Walker," said Kay. She looked in my direction and sighed. "What say you?"  
"He's probably using someone else. Someone he can manipulate into taking the fall, like he did to Walker," I said. "Problem is, you knew Walker from the first time; if Collins has someone new, we're not going to be able to identify them."

Silence fell. I'd made a valid point, and both of them knew it. Fourteen notes and nine murders. Three more and it would make four for the month of March. And we still had three weeks left.

"Maybe we should try going over the files again…" Abby started, but Kay cut her off.

"We've already done that at least twenty times," she said, running a tired hand through her hair. "I doubt there's anything more we can get from them."

I knew why she was so agitated. In all the years I'd known her, she had never once _not_ closed a case, even after she'd been shot; the first thing she'd done upon returning was close one of Pembleton's cases…single-handedly. The first Charm Bracelet murders had probably stuck with her as long as they'd stuck with me: they were the only cases that she hadn't _officially_ closed, or helped to close.

"Why don't we just head back to the precinct?" I asked, carefully avoiding Abby's gaze. "The others are more likely to have something."

* * *

They didn't. They'd been everywhere they could possibly think of, and they hadn't found anything. The fact that the radio was on and two afternoon talk show hosts were talking about the case didn't exactly help.

"…but if they haven't gotten anywhere by now, then maybe it's time for the NYPD to bring another unit in…"

"…why would they do that? They're the Special Victims Unit, sex crimes are supposed to be their field, no one else's. It's hardly the department's fault they can't get themselves together enough to solve this."

Elliot scowled and flipped the radio off, looking this close to picking it up and throwing it across the room. The others looked the same way. Abby sat on the edge of my desk and picked up one of the pens sitting there, twirling it between her fingers as she stared off into nothingness. I knew the look that had crossed her face all too well; she was up to something. And if she decided she wanted to do it, then there wasn't going to be any talking her out of it. Luckily, when she spoke, she wasn't spouting off one of her ideas.

"What happened to all the files from this time around?" she asked. I motioned to my top desk drawer; she leaned over and pulled it open, yanking out all eight of the files before getting up and stalking off towards the interview room.

"And what exactly does she think she's going to do with those?" Olivia asked. I shrugged.

"Hell if I know," I replied. "If I did, I'd tell you." I had the feeling, though, even as I said this, that Abby was going over all of those files, yet again, to check for similarities. I doubted she'd find any. Collins had pretty much made sure of that, but we never knew. It would have been easy for us to have missed a slip he made earlier on in the 'game', if there had been any.

"You realize that he could be in any one of the boroughs?" Elliot asked finally, breaking into my thoughts. "We haven't even covered half of Manhattan yet. It could take weeks to find him."

Weeks that we didn't have. Or rather, weeks that we had, but didn't want to waste waiting for another clue to come with another child's murder. I picked up the pen that Abby had left behind and started twirling it between my own fingers, leaning back in my seat as I thought.

"Everyone we've ever canvassed in relation to this claimed they didn't know anything," she said. "The only way it's not going to take weeks for us to find him is if someone comes forward."

She was right. All of us knew it, too: we just didn't want to admit it. Admitting it, in a way, would be signifying defeat. We had no way of getting the information we needed out of people we'd canvassed, even if they _did_ know something. If as far as they were concerned, they didn't know anything, then they weren't going to say anything, no matter how many times we asked.

"We found two more notes," said Kay. She pulled the one I'd wanted to take away from her out of her pocket and handed it to Tim, who was sitting closest to her; he looked it over before looking at me.

"You read this?" he asked. I nodded wordlessly, suddenly not trusting myself to say any more than I already had. Tim frowned and handed the note over to Fin, who was a few feet away from him. The note Abby had found upon reaching the car at the crime scene was in my pocket; I took it out and handed it over to Elliot.

"Fourteen of them, now," I said. "Nine murders. Difference is an odd number…think he noticed?"

"Probably not," said Olivia, taking the note as Elliot handed it over to her. "But if he did, he'll probably try and leave another note just to even it out."

As if on cue, a younger, uniformed officer walked into the squad room with an envelope in hand, looking quite nervous.

"Someone just handed me this…told me to take it to SVU," she said. Tim reached out and took the envelope from her, frowning slightly as he looked at her.

"Can you describe him?" he asked slowly, and the uniform nodded, looking more nervous than she had when she'd first walked in.

"A few inches shorter than you, maybe 190…he was wearing a hat and glasses; I didn't really see his face." came the reply.

"All right, thanks." Tim sounded a lot calmer than the rest of us probably felt; as the uniform left, he turned to face Kay and me.

"You two all right?" he asked. Both of us shook our heads. The person that the uniform had described….we'd heard that description before. The last time we'd heard it, though, had been right before Meldrick and I had been shot. It had come from a frightened twelve-year-old who had somehow managed to escape her captor and run for the first squad car she saw.

Brandon Collins had just been inside our precinct. And because no one had recognized him, he had slipped away unnoticed.


	17. Chapter 16

A/N: Yeah, so hopefully, ch.17 and ch.18 will be up soon, but alas, school takes up more time than it should...ah, well. I've got 'em mostly done, anyways, so, yeah...

* * *

The news of Collins' appearance in our squad room spread a lot faster than any of us thought it would. The uniform who'd taken the note from him was now under investigation by IAB, and by the time we saw the poor girl a few days later, she looked as if she'd been through hell and back. Obviously, no one had told her how harsh IAB was, even when there was no reason for them to suspect anything. I'd lost count of the number of times she'd apologized to us for just letting him get away with that. We'd all taken our turn at reassuring her that there was no way she could have known it was him, but it was obviously that she still felt guilty.

"You know, I'd love to stick IAB in an interrogation room and give them a taste of their own damn medicine," Elliot muttered as she left our squad room for what seemed to be the millionth time. "They've got no reason to be going after her."

"I'll say," said Kay. "They're worse up here than they are in Baltimore." I snorted into my coffee at this; she had a point, but it was still amusing. They _did_ seem to be worse up here than they ever were in Baltimore, but the whole thing was irrelevant. What mattered was that Collins had slipped through our fingers, yet again, and now we were on pins and needles waiting for another murder, while doing everything in our power to prevent it.

Abby had been in and out of the interview room with the notes and files from this round ever since Jessica Bennett's murder, coming out only when she wanted coffee or to ask us if there was any news. She'd come to the precinct before any of us that day, and none of us had yet seen her.

"She's going to make herself sick if she keeps going on like this," Tim remarked, motioning off towards the interview room and shaking his head. "I don't think she's been sleeping lately."

"I wouldn't doubt that." I said. "For that matter, Rose is going to have my head if she doesn't; I'm going to talk to her." I started off towards the interview room, and saw Kay shaking her head out of the corner of my eye.

"I'm going to laugh if she decks you," she said. "You know better than anyone else how she is."

I did, but I ignored this comment and walked into the interview room anyways. Sure enough, there was Abby, still poring over the current case files and sipping from a mug of coffee.

"Don't even think about it," she said, without looking up, but I ignored her as well, sitting in the chair across from her and waiting. She looked up after a few minutes, scowling.

"If you really think threatening me with another lecture from Rose is going to work, you've got another thing coming," she said. "I'm not going anywhere until I find something."

"I didn't say anything," I replied. She gave me a look, pushing her hair out of her eyes and allowing herself to lean back.

"I know you too well to fall for that one," she said. "What do you want now? Is there…" She trailed off, unable to say the words, and looked away. I shook my head, but she didn't see me, so I spoke.

"No," I told her, "There hasn't been another one. But that uniform's been in here again apologizing." Abby shook her head, turning back to face me.

"She's not the one who should be apologizing," she remarked. "How was she supposed to know it was him? She looks barely old enough to be out of the academy."

"She looks older now," I commented quietly. "IAB's really doing a number on her. They think she has something to do with it." Abby shook her head again, a bitter laugh escaping her.

"They really are getting desperate for answers, aren't they?" she asked acidly. I sighed.

"We all are, Abby," I said. "It's not just them. It's the whole department. They're scared because they think we're starting to get burned out, and they think that this case is going to be the final straw."

"It was almost the final straw the first time." Abby's voice had lowered to nothing more than a nearly inaudible whisper; she looked away again, staring out the window at the rain. "I nearly quit my job when Collins walked the first time."

"Yeah, and I almost ate my gun before we even found him," I said. "But we're both still here, aren't we?"

"Are you listening to yourself?" Abby asked. "If we don't close this, I'm gonna go back to Baltimore looking even more like a failure, you're probably going to be forced into retirement…"

"That isn't the worst that could happen," I pointed out, "And you're not a failure. It's not your fault Meldrick and I decided to beat the hell out of him."

Silence fell. For a minute, I thought she was going to start yelling at me again, but she didn't. Instead she leaned forward and closed the files in front of her, sighing as she ran a hand through her hair.

"I haven't found anything," she said. "I must have been through these files at least ten times each in the past few days…there's nothing."

"You knew there wouldn't be," I said quietly. "There were never any similarities in these cases."

"I know," Abby admitted, "I just…I couldn't help but hope there was a chance that there might be something we missed."

Something we missed. It certainly seemed as if we'd been missing a lot lately, even if we hadn't, really. The city could talk all they wanted; we knew what we were doing, even if it didn't appear so. Our insecurities were the least of their worries. And it was for that reason that we couldn't let them get in the way, no matter how much we wanted them to.

"I think it might be a good idea if you took a break from this and started helping Casey with Walker's trial," I said finally, and Abby looked up at me, startled.

"You're taking me off this?" she asked. I shook my head.

"No," I said, "I'm not taking you off this; I'm just saying that it might be easier for you to handle this the way you already know how to, instead of playing detective with me."

"And if Casey doesn't need my help? Then what am I supposed to do, sit in the hotel and knit?"

"I highly doubt you know how to knit, so, no. And I'm pretty sure Casey could use someone on her side right about now."

That was certainly true. Casey had come by two days ago with the news that the D.A. was pressuring her into taking Walker to trial as soon as possible. At the moment, the trial was scheduled to start in a week. He was being charged with being an accomplice to murder, as well as obstructing justice, which I had the feeling that Casey had somehow managed to bootstrap once she'd found out he wouldn't talk. It would be a hollow victory, even if we got a conviction, but at least it was something.

"Well, if you're so intent on me going back to the courtroom side, then I suggest you take me over to the D.A's office, because I don't know how to get there." Abby's voice broke into my thoughts and when I looked over at her, I saw that a half-hearted smile had crossed her face, the first since she had taken the files. I nodded wordlessly and reached into my pocket for my keys; we left the squad room a few minutes later, ignoring the looks that those who _weren't _working the case were casting in our direction.

* * *

"Aren't you two a sight for sore eyes?" Casey heard our footsteps before she actually saw us; her office door was open and she was looking up when we walked in, offering up the same half-hearted smile Abby had been wearing a little while before. "Anything new?"

"Other than a few new notes, no," I replied. I pulled the three envelopes we'd gotten from the last murder out of my coat pocket and set them on her desk; she looked at them and then motioned for Abby and me both to sit down.

"I'm sure you both have heard Walker's trial starts in a week," she said. Both of us nodded; Casey sighed and ran a hand through her hair before continuing. "I have to tell you now, there's a good possibility that he could walk."

"Even if he does, Baltimore's looking to possibly extradite," Abby said finally. "Walker's wanted on current drug charges, not to mention assault with a deadly weapon and the attempted murder of two police officers."

Casey's eyebrows raised at this; she reached for the water bottle in front of her and took a sip from it before replying. "Quite the record, isn't it?"

"That's not even half of it," Abby answered. "There's a stronger chance that he'll be convicted there, even if he gets a walk here."

"How long ago were the assault and attempted murder charges?" Casey asked. Abby sighed.

"The assault charges came about a year before this started," she said. "Attempted murder charges were…well, they were a while ago."

"I'm assuming they were for the attempted murders of two Baltimore police?" said Casey, glancing at me as I shifted slightly in my position. Abby nodded.

"Yeah," she said, "Walker was working with the same man who committed these murders the first time around. We had Collins, but Walker shot two of the three who were there, and they both got away."

Casey shook her head in disgust. "Well, if we lose here, I'll do what I can to see that Baltimore gets him," she said. "For now, all we can do is worry about these charges."

"Which is exactly why I'm here," said Abby. "I might not work for your office, but I think I might be able to help you with this trial."

Silence fell. Casey looked in my direction for a few seconds before nodding and taking another sip from her water bottle.

"I'm sure the D.A. will be willing to let you work with me, considering," she said. "I haven't figured out yet how I'm going to go about this; you might actually make it easier to get a conviction…"

Casey continued on, but I was no longer listening. Abby seemed slightly more cheerful than she had been in a while, probably because I'd finally pushed her back into her own element, which was where she should have been in the first place. Neither of them noticed when I got up to leave, but I had the feeling that once Abby noticed I was gone, I was going to get an earful when I saw her again. I closed the office door behind her and started towards the elevators, reaching into my pocket for my cell phone as it rang.

"Well, I'll be damned; you _do_ know how to answer a phone." Kai's voice sounded in my ear, and I rolled my eyes, fighting back the sudden desire to laugh.

"Aren't you supposed to be in class?" I asked. "It's the middle of the morning." She sighed, and I had the feeling that if I could see her, she'd have been shrugging.

"I didn't have a class this morning," she said, "In fact, I don't have a class for another couple of hours."

"Where are you, then?" I asked, as the message from the first note at the last crime scene came back to me, echoing in my mind as if someone were reading it out loud again.

"Waterfront," she replied, "Why? What's going on up there?"

Nothing that she needed to know about, or Rowan, for that matter, but I had the feeling Rose already knew everything and was just keeping it from them.

"Nothing," I said finally, "Nothing's going on up here. Why'd you call?"

"What, I'm not allowed to call you anymore? I've got you. I'll hang up if you want me to…"

"That's not what I meant, and you know it. Are Rowan and Rose with you?"

"Rowan is. I don't know where Rose went, but she had two cops following her. I think they were from Kay's shift."

So Kay really _had_ set a police detail on them. As relieved as I was by this, I'd have still preferred if all three of them were in the same place, but it wasn't really going to matter what I said: I wasn't there, and therefore, couldn't actually enforce anything.

"They say anything to her?" I asked finally.

"Yeah," said Kai. "I didn't hear what it was, though, but Rose had this look on her face like she was about ready to kill someone…you know, that look she gets when Abby ticks her off."

I knew that look all too well, having been on the receiving end of it myself more times than I cared to remember. I wasn't surprised Rose was irritated about having to be followed; she was like Abby in that sense, convinced she could take care of herself, even when it was obvious that something might happen to her.

"Who's at the Waterfront with you?" I asked. Kai sighed again, and I heard voices in the background. Some of them I recognized; others, I didn't.

"Meldrick's here," she said finally. "Paul and Laura showed up a few minutes ago…Mike Kellerman and Mike Giardello are both here…"

"Pretty much everyone that's ever worked the first shift, then," I said. Kai laughed.

"Yeah, pretty much," she said. "I wouldn't count on anything happening while we're here."

I hated it when she did that. It was like she could read my mind, even though I hadn't given her anything to indicate that something _would_ happen. Then again, she had referred to me as paranoid more times than I cared to think about, so it wasn't surprising; it was more unsettling than anything else.

"What makes you think something's going to happen?" I asked finally. "I didn't say anything."

"You don't have to," came the reply. "I can tell by your voice. Now, are you going to tell me what's going on or not?"

"No," I answered, "I'm not, because knowing you, the first thing you'll do is tell Rowan, and then I'll never hear the end of it."

"Hey! I know how to keep my mouth shut, thanks."

"I should live to see the day." I paused for a moment, waiting for the indignant reply I knew would come, and sure enough it did.

"You want to play it that way? I've got you. You just wait and see if I bother calling you again."

"I should also live to see that day." Again, there was silence. I was torn between wanting to laugh at this conversation and wanting to continue pressing her for information, but she spoke before I could.

"You should talk to Rowan," she remarked. "When's the last time you two talked, anyway?"

"About two weeks ago, give or take a few days," I admitted. Silence fell, and I could just imagine her getting the same look Rose did when I told her something like that.

"I can't believe you," she said finally. "First you promise to call and then you what, you forget?" She paused for a minute and I could almost see her shaking her head. "You know what, forget it. You can deal with it later, but you're talking to her now."

Shuffling told me that whatever phone Kai had been using was changing hands; I stepped out of the building the D.A's office was located in and stood there, waiting.

"I hope you know Rose is this close to coming up there to kill you and Abby," Rowan remarked, once the phone had finally reached her.

"Good," I said, "We end up dead, everyone's going to know exactly who to look for."

"I hardly see the point of being down here if you're not going to bother taking the time to pick up the phone."

"There have been four murders since you left; I can't exactly drop everything just to talk to you."

Silence fell as soon as the last word left me, and it suddenly hit me exactly what that remark had sounded like.

"If you don't want to talk to me, then don't," Rowan said finally, "No one's forcing you to."

"That's not what I meant," I said. "I _do_ want to talk to you, I just haven't had time to call lately."

"I see," said Rowan, in that same tone that told me she didn't, and that if she did, she was still annoyed about it. "So, what _have_ you been up to lately?"

Nothing that I wanted to tell her, or even wanted to think about, for that matter. Something told me, however, that this wasn't going to fly, and I sighed before answering.

"Except for these cases, nothing," I said. "We still haven't gotten anywhere with any of them."

Other than the phone calls, and the increasingly threatening notes. I was tempted at this point to tell her to come back to New York, but Kay was more than likely to end up pissed off at me if I did, so I said nothing and waited.

"There's something you're not telling me," Rowan said finally, "Are you all right?"

I figured then that I should have known that if anyone knew something was up, it would be her. I _wasn't_ all right, not with these latest notes, and the discovery of surveillance equipment in our apartment and everything else that was going on. But she didn't need to know that.

"Yeah," I said, "I'm fine, I'm just tired."

"Haven't you been sleeping lately?" I hated the note of worry that I heard in Rowan's voice, but there wasn't anything I could do about it, and that made me hate it even more.

"I've been trying," I said, "But I can't tell you it's been working." And I couldn't tell her _why_ it hadn't been working, either. It would only make her worry more.

"Maybe you should take a sleeping pill or something," said Rowan, pulling me out of my line of thoughts and back into reality. "It might help."

Key word being 'might'. I doubted it would. "I will," I said. "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine."

"Don't worry, he says," Rowan muttered dryly. "How the hell do you expect me _not_ to worry?"

I had asked Kay the same thing a few days ago. Her solution was just to ignore the situation, which was something that I definitely could not do. I'd hoped that at least Rowan would be able to, but now it was quite evident that she couldn't.

"I don't," I said, "I just want you to try. You're only going to drive yourself up the wall if you keep thinking about it."

Again, there was silence. Rowan sighed again and I could see her in the back of my mind, running an impatient hand through her hair. I waited, but no reply came.

"You all right?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm all right, I just…" Rowan trailed off for a moment before continuing on. "I just want to come home."

"It'll be over soon," I told her. "You'll be home before you know it." It was an empty promise, at least, as far as I knew at that moment, but it seemed to make her feel better: she sounded slightly more cheerful when she replied.

"I should let you go," she said. "You've probably got a lot to do."

"I do," I said. Silence fell for a third time, and when she didn't reply, I went on. "I'll call you later, all right?"

"All right." She cut herself off, and a few more minutes of silence passed before she spoke again. "I love you."

"I love you, too." I flipped my cell phone closed and stowed it away in my pocket again before looking up; I had reached the precinct without noticing and was now sitting there in the pocket, listening to silence.

Collins had been right, as much as I hated to admit it: I _did_ need to keep better contact with Rowan and Kai…especially since they were in a place where I couldn't see them. As disturbed as I was by this fact, hearing their voices had made me feel better than I had been mere hours before.

With this thought in mind, I got out of the car and walked into the precinct, determined not to let myself think about anything but closing this case so that they could come home.


	18. Chapter 17

A/N: Yeah, so...this is where I decided to go with this, so bear with me. I've got another idea, and it's not likely to go away until I get it written out, so...yeah.

* * *

Sure enough, Walker's trial started a week after our ninth victim's death. Abby seemed to be doing a lot better than she ha been before, which was a relief, at least, to me. Now instead of holing up in the interview room, she went with Casey to the courthouse. Two days after the trial began, we met with our tenth victim and our sixteenth note. We still had not identified the ninth, which, to me, at least, was quite disturbing: surely someone had missed her?

Fin and I were, for once, since this had all begun, working together again; we crossed the crime scene tape in silence, neither of us daring to say anything. It was about 4:30 in the evening; the streetlights weren't on yet, but they would be soon. Melinda stood just inside the tape, looking more upset than either of us had ever seen her. Behind her, the body lay out on the rubber mats leading to the playground structure, covered by a sheet.

"He tortured her," Melinda said, before either of us could ask. "I found rope marks, burns, cuts…I couldn't even make out her face." She sounded close to tears, not that Fin and I could blame her; she'd been at every one of these scenes for the past three months. But none of them had been like this.

Fin walked off to talk to CSU to avoid getting Melinda more upset than she already was; she left a few minutes later with her assistants, the body in tow. A toddler's pair of blue jeans lay not too far away from where I was standing. They were torn and stained with blood: Collins had killed this one here. I felt a hand on my shoulder and jumped, turning to see Fin standing there behind me. He held out the envelope CSU had given him.

"You want to, or should I?" he asked. I sighed and reached for the envelope, opening it and pulling out the latest note.

_"Forgive me, Detectives, but I could not seem to control myself this time. I've sure you've noticed that, as well as the little clue I've left. I have heard that walker's trial has begun; I wish your ADA and ASA Williams luck; they'll be hard pressed to get a conviction here. In Baltimore, however, they might be luckier. But I digress. I must admit it's been amusing watching the department now that they know I've been into your precinct unnoticed. Perhaps next time your uniforms will actually be informed about all of this." _

Fin grabbed the note before I could make up my mind to start tearing it to pieces. He shoved it into his pocket and motioned for me to follow him across the tape again. I did, and once the playground was out of view, I spoke.

"That sick son of a bitch," I muttered. "How the hell can anyone do that to a child?" My voice broke on the last word and I turned away; Fin sighed, but remained where he was, a few feet in front of me.

"We've seen stuff like this before," he pointed out. I didn't answer. He was right and I knew it; we had seen things like this, but never on this scale. Sure, we might've had more than one victim in a case or two…or three, but ten? It was nine too many; one I could have dealt with, but this…this was too much.

"You heard what Warner said," I said finally. "She couldn't even make out this one's face."

"But he left us something," said Fin. "He's slipping. He's afraid Casey might get Walker to talk."

"So why doesn't he just leave the damn city?" I demanded. "If he's so afraid Walker's gonna roll on him, why the hell doesn't he just leave and make sure we don't catch him?"

No answer came, not that I'd really expected one. We stood there in silence for a long moment before I reached into my pocket for the keys and tossed them to him.

"You drive," I said, "I'll probably get us into a wreck in this state."

Fin smirked at this, and I knew why: I was usually the first one to make some snarky comment about the way he drove. We continued walking, anyways, and when we reached the car, I got in on the passenger's side, leaning back and closing my eyes.

"I'm too damn old for this," I remarked. Fin snorted.

"That's what you get for not retiring," he said. "You got yourself into this."

"Yes, since all I did was answer the damn phone and draw primary," I said. "You'd probably feel the same way if you were stuck where I am."

"But I'm not, and I don't," said Fin. "If he walks into the precinct again…"

"He won't," I said, cutting him off, "He knows we're all going to be looking to see if he does."

Again there was silence. It was true, though, what I had said. Collins wouldn't be walking into the precinct again; he wasn't that stupid.

Even so, I still couldn't help but hope that maybe he was.

* * *

Surprisingly enough, Abby was still in a good mood by the time I saw her again, about two hours after discovering our latest victim. Walker's trial, according to her, anyway, was actually going fairly well. I had the feeling she was only telling me this to convince herself, but rather than cast my normal cynicism over her, I decided to leave well enough alone.

"I think we might be able to nail him," she told me, falling backwards onto her bed. "Might not be for everything, but there's still a good chance he'll do time."

"The question, then," I said, "Would be whether or not he's sentenced to serve enough time." Abby rolled over onto her side and made a face at me.

"No time is enough time for a bastard like that," she said. "Honestly, I'd prefer it if he got the death penalty, considering, but I'll take whatever I can get for this."

I hadn't expected anything less. Abby had always been the type to take whatever time served she could get for whoever it was that she happened to be prosecuting. It had earned her quite the reputation in the State's Attorney's office: she was to them what Kay had been, and still was, to the first shift.

"Who's sitting first chair in this, anyway?" I asked. Abby sighed and rolled onto her back again, staring up at the ceiling as she replied.

"I am," she admitted. "Casey somehow managed to talk your District Attorney into it; I don't know how, but it worked."

I don't know why, but I felt more than slightly relieved by this, even though I knew Casey was more than capable of sitting first chair herself. Abby was really the only one I actually trusted to handle any sort of prosecution related to this case, and it wasn't only because we'd been friends ever since we were kids. She had been assigned as a prosecutor the first time, and I felt that it was only right that she sit first chair this time, though I certainly wasn't about to say this to Casey.

"Hey, what's that look for?" Abby asked. When I didn't answer, she sat up, leaning over to wave a hand in my face. "Anyone home in there?"

"Yes, there's someone home, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation," I replied mildly. "You really think this is going to turn out the way we want it?"  
"I don't see how it can't, but there's a chance that it won't," said Abby. "Walker's lawyers have had us in more than one place, but they haven't said anything."

"Maybe they've suddenly grown a conscience," I said dryly, feigning surprise. "Or maybe they've got kids."

"I doubt they've got a conscience, but maybe they do have kids," said Abby. A thoughtful look crossed her face at this and she leaned against the headboard before turning to face me again.

"You don't think they're doing it on purpose, do you?" she asked. "To make sure we get a conviction?"  
"No defense attorney in this city is that stupid," I replied. "They've probably got something they're going to use against you later on in the trial."

"There isn't anything, though," Abby said, but she sounded uncertain. "At least, we don't think there is."

"Trust me," I said, "There's always something. I've seen stronger cases than this fall apart."

"Yeah, well, so have I," said Abby. "That's what scares me. These notes might not be enough to get him convicted."

Suddenly I remembered the blue jeans that had been left at the scene. The Crime Lab had rushed the DNA results to us once they'd found out which case it was in connection to. The blood had all belonged to our fifth victim, the two-year-old. But there had been something else…and that something else was all Walker's.

"You can add rape to the charges," I said finally, and Abby looked at me, startled.

"When did we find this out?" she demanded. "And when exactly were you planning on telling me about it?"

"As soon as we got the results," I said. I bent over to pick the folder up off of the table between the two beds in the room; Abby grabbed it from me before I could open it and read the results to her. It took her about three minutes to finish.

"Kayley Fiddler," she said, before looking up at me. "She was the two-year-old." It was more of a question than a statement, and I nodded; she cast a disgusted look at the results before shoving the file away from her.

"That bastard," she said angrily. "What kind of man willingly does that?" She trailed off for a minute as her voice started cracking, sucking in a breath and exhaling loudly before going on. "She was only a baby."

They were _all_ only babies, even Claire Fisher, the sixteen-year-old who was so far, our eldest victim. Even if we in particular didn't think of them that way, their parents certainly had. Abby seemed to know what I had started thinking about, because she moved so that she was sitting beside me and leaned over so her head was on my shoulder.

"I can use this," she said. "There's no way a jury's going to let Walker off now." She sounded a lot more confident than I felt, which was of some comfort, though it wasn't much.

Her cell phone rang then, and we both froze. It rang a second, and then a third time before she finally reached out and flipped it open, putting it on the speakerphone setting again.

"Hello?"

"ASA Williams. I was starting to wonder if you remembered how to answer a phone." Collins' voice filled the hotel room, making it seem a hell of a lot smaller than it already did. Abby shifted so that she was sitting up, and scowled.

"You are one sick son of a bitch, you know that?" she demanded. "Leaving Kayley Fiddler's clothes at the last crime scene? You really think this is going to help you?"

"I didn't expect it to help me," Collins replied coolly. "I expected it to help you. I'm sure that this new evidence will make it easier for you and ADA Novak to get the conviction the both of you are so desperate for."

"You're the one who's desperate," Abby shot back. "There's got to be something wrong with you if you can't get any on your own."

She was coming dangerously close to crossing the lines that had already been set, but I doubted she cared, and I certainly didn't, either. Collins had been taunting us since the beginning; it was only about time that he started to get some of his own 'medicine'.

"I hate to disappoint you, but there is nothing wrong with me," said Collins, "At least, not that I am aware of."

"You're not aware of a lot, then, are you?" I asked, finally managing to regain my voice. "If you can't see what the rest of the world sees…"  
"And what, pray tell, would that be?" Collins asked, cutting me off. I smirked, thankful that he was no longer able to see any of us. The door to the room opened and then slammed loudly; Abby jumped and peered around the corner to find that Kay and Tim had just walked in.

"You want to know?" I asked in reply. "I'll tell you. They see a sick, perverted bastard who gets off on kidnapping little girls just so he can rape them and then murder them."

"Someone's got a temper," said Collins. Kay snorted.

"You think _he's _got a temper?" she demanded. "What do you call the last victim you left us?"

"I call that a lack of self-control." Collins told her. "Certainly nothing to do with any sort of temper."

"The hell it doesn't," Tim said angrily. "You tortured her, Collins, and then you left her to die."

"So what if I did?" Collins asked. "Do you really think it makes a difference? She wasn't an only child; and it isn't as if her parents can't have more."

"Is that what this is about?" Abby demanded. "You're taking your anger out on these parents because yours didn't care one way or the other about you?"

"I would advise that you do not speak of thing which you know nothing about," said Collins. "I had a normal childhood."

"Obviously not," Kay said sarcastically. "Normal people don't grow up and do this sort of thing, Collins."

"And I suppose you would consider yourself normal, then, Detective Howard, you and the rest of the people you're working with?" came the reply.

"Yes," Kay said defiantly, "I would. More normal than you, in any case." Silence fell, and the only thing that any of us could hear was the sound of our own breathing. Muffled whimpering suddenly broke that silence, and all of us stiffened visibly.

"You hear that, don't you, Detectives?" Collins asked finally, maliciously. "I've got my next victim…but you won't be seeing this one any time soon; I plan on keeping her for a while."

The line clicked, then, and we knew that he'd hung up. Abby swore loudly and got up, starting to pace back and forth, up and down the length of the room.

"Number eleven," she said finally. "He's not going to keep this one for too long; she's an odd one."

There hadn't been any pun intended by this, but half-hearted smiles crossed all of our faces anyways. Humor was definitely something we needed, especially since there wasn't really anything else that we could laugh at without looking as if we didn't give a damn about any of this.

"He said he was going to keep her for a while," I pointed out. "A few days at the most…I think he's been keeping them longer."

"That would explain why we haven't been seeing these bodies so close together anymore." Kay sat in the space that Abby had just vacated and leaned back, running a hand through her hair. "I can't believe this."

Neither could the rest of us. This was the first that any of us had ever heard of Collins keeping his victims for a while before killing them and dropping them off in places where they would quickly be found. A sinking feeling settled over me at this, and I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees as I shook my head.

"When he calls again," I said finally, "He might let her talk to us."

"What good is that going to do?" Abby asked sarcastically. "He keeps calling from pay phones all around the city."

"No," said Kay, catching on to what I was getting at. "He's not going to do that anymore. Not if he's going to keep calling us…he won't want anyone to see the girl."

"Even if someone does see her, it's not as if she's going to make it obvious that she's been kidnapped," said Tim. "He's probably threatened to kill her if she does."

Silence fell again. He had a point, and a valid one, at that: Collins' main motivator was fear, and if there was one thing that he could use to scare a child, it was telling her that she was going to die if she did anything wrong.

Abby reached for her cell phone and flipped it open, looking through all of the incoming calls that she had received that day. Suddenly, she frowned and walked over to me.

"You recognize this number?" she asked, handing me the phone. I looked down at the tiny screen, and a split second later, my eyes widened in shock.

I _did_ recognize the number. Kay had been right; for once, Collins hadn't called us from a pay phone, he'd called us from another cell phone…Elliot's cell phone.


	19. Chapter 18

A/N: Finally, inspiration! LSM, this one is for you and for bored, and for AT, because I know she wanted another Munch fic to read, so...yeah. And now I'm done ranting so I shall go start ch.19.

* * *

I found out the next day that Elliot had been missing his cell phone for two days and had assumed that one of his kids had mistaken it for their own when he tried calling it and reached his own voicemail. The news that it had not been one of his kids, but rather Collins, who had taken it, left him quite disturbed, and I had the feeling I knew why.

"Where's the last place you remember having it?" I asked.

"Home," he replied. "I didn't even…I thought the twins might've taken it with them when they went back out to Queens on Sunday…" He trailed off there, looking upset, not that I could blame him for it. Collins had already gone so far as tobug _my _apartment; I wouldn't have put it past him to have done the same thing to Elliot's.

"Obviously, they didn't," said Olivia. She turned so that she could see us clearly and continued. "Cell phones might be easier to trace, but it's possible for him to make it look like he's in one place when he's really in another.

Elliot cast a confused look in her direction while Fin and I both smirked. We knew exactly what she was getting at.

"Besides that, we don't even know if he's using his real voice; it could be one of those voice-changing devices." I said innocently. Olivia cast an annoyed look at me but said nothing; Fin looked this close to laughing and Elliot still looked confused.

"What the hell are you talking about?" he asked. I shook my head.

"Old case," I said. "Don't worry about it." He didn't answer and silence fell over the squad room. It lingered for a while, and finally, Olivia spoke again.

"It's still worth a shot to try a trace," she said. "We're never gonna know what he does until we try."

"What would he want with my phone, though?" Elliot asked suddenly. "It doesn't make any sense."

"You're telling me," I said. "I'd have thought he'd want _my_ phone."

"Probably figured yours would be able to get a hold of," Fin said to Elliot, "You're alone in that apartment; Munch is with the group from Baltimore. A missing phone would've been easier for them to notice."

I doubted that. With the four of us between two hotel rooms, with all our stuff, not to mention copies of case files everywhere, a missing phone would probably have been the _last_ thing we noticed. But I said nothing; in a way, Fin was right, it would have been harder for Elliot to realize his phone was gone.

"That's beside the point," I said. "What we need to worry about is how we're going to keep this from reaching IAB." Olivia snorted.

"Yeah, right," she said. "They're convinced a cop is involved, and now they've got the brass telling us to report anything we might find to them."

"Screw that," said Fin. "What are they gonna do other than cause more trouble?"

"I haven't seen that uniform around lately," I remarked. "Whatever happened to her?"

"Sent her off to Staten Island," said Elliot. I shook my head in disgust at this. Staten Island had earned the nickname, department-wise, anyways, of 'career graveyard'. I couldn't believe the department hierarchy had gone so far as to do that to someone who'd had nothing to do with anything.

"They give a reason?" I asked finally.

"If you can call it that," said Olivia. She fell silent a moment and then proceeded to change the subject. "Why aren't the other two here?"

"I took them to the courthouse," I said. "They wanted to offer moral support." It was true, too, despite the skeptical looks that I suddenly found being cast at me. The trial had, unexpectedly, turned towards the defense, or so Abby had told me when I'd dropped off Kay and Tim. My theory had been right: they'd been saving their move until it suited them, and now they'd probably be able to turn the jury towards an acquittal.

"Something go wrong?" Elliot asked. I sighed.

"I don't know," I said. "Abby told me it's starting to turn towards the defense, but I gave her the lab results, so maybe it won't turn out too badly."

"Hope not." Olivia leaned back in her seat, an almost thoughtful look crossing her face as she did. "They amended the charges already?"

"According to Abby, they did it this morning," I said. "Walker's probably had a hand in the kidnappings and murders since the beginning."

"Well, the defense can hardly claim the prosecution held this back," said Olivia, "Not if they didn't know until this morning."  
"Which they didn't," I said. "I just hope they can bring it into evidence so late in the trial."

"They should be if they haven't already started closing arguments," said Elliot. "Abby say anything about that?" I shook my head.

"No," I said. "She'd have told me that it was useless if they had. We might still have a chance."

I sounded a lot more confident about all of this than I felt, and the other three must have known it, because none of them said anything. I leaned back in my chair and picked up a pen, twirling it between my fingers as I waited, but the silence lingered, and finally, I spoke again.

"Abby says Baltimore's looking to extradite if we don't get a conviction here," I said. "There's a better chance that he'll serve time down there."

"At this point, I don't think anyone cares _where_ he serves time, so long as he serves it," said Elliot. "She have anything else to tell you?" I shook my head.

"Not yet," I said. "All she'd say is that things are leaning towards the defense, but hopefully not for long."

Key word being 'hopefully'. Usually when things turned towards the defense, it meant we were already screwed over, no matter what else we did. Then again, the police could only do so much; Abby and Casey both knew it, but it didn't mean they wouldn't end up getting pissed off at the lot of us anyways.

The phone rang then; Olivia reached for it before any of us could move, frowning slightly before turning it to a speakerphone setting, like Abby had with her cell phone the night before.

"All four of you at once. What an unexpected surprise." Collins' voice filled the squad room; the hallway outside went silent, but we knew better: people were listening.

"What do you want, Collins?" Olivia was the first to regain her voice, which wasn't altogether surprising; the rest of us just sat there, for some reason unable to make ourselves believe what was going on. It was bad enough that Collins had already been inside the precinct, but the fact that he was calling here…Either he knew something about all of this that we didn't, which was more than likely, or he was trying to throw us off by giving us a false sense of hope. Laughter that was definitely not Olivia's brought us all back into reality; apparently, Collins had found something amusing in her question.

"What do I want?" he asked. "Nothing. I am merely calling to see whether or not you've gotten anywhere."

"You already know we haven't; why bother?" I asked.

"Does it matter?" came the answer. "I must say, Detective, giving the prosecution the evidence I left for you was a smart move. The trial has turned in their favor."

"How do you know?" I asked. "Have you been in the courthouse?"

"I hardly think that any of you believe that I am really that stupid," said Collins. "Of course I haven't been in the courthouse. The entire city is looking for me."

"But they care more about that little girl you've got than they do about you," said Elliot, cutting in before I could retort. "Tell me something, Collins, do you really expect to make it out of this alive if you're found and something's happened to her?"

"If something were to happen to me before I reached trial, Detective Stabler, all I would have to do is claim police brutality, and I could get the charges thrown out, as I'm sure Detective Munch is already aware of." Collins told him flatly. I looked over at Fin, who, out of the rest of the unit, was the only one who really knew anything; he said nothing. Elliot and Olivia, on the other hand, decided not to leave well enough alone and took it upon themselves to ask him exactly what the hell that was supposed to mean.

"I'm assuming then," said Collins, "That none of you have had the chance to meet Detective Lewis."

"You leave him out of this," I said loudly, "He had nothing to do with anything." Collins snorted.

"I beg to differ, Detective, if I remember correctly, it was he who started it all in a room that the Homicide squad referred to as 'the Box'."

"Get to the point, Collins," said Fin. "What are you trying to say?"

"Merely that you don't know your partner as well as you think you do; he is capable of a lot more than you might assume." Collins paused for a moment to give them time to mull this over and then continued. "No matter. I'm sure the four of you are quite busy; I shall let you get back to your work."

A click let us know that we'd been hung up on; none of us said anything and noises in the outside hallway resumed.

"That's great," Olivia said finally, dryly, "Now the whole damn precinct knows that Collins is literally laughing in our faces."

"What was he talking about?" Elliot asked suddenly, abruptly changing the subject. "It had to be something for you to react like that."

"Like what?" I asked, carefully avoiding looking him in the eye. "It wasn't anything."

"It was something," said Olivia, "You wouldn't have gotten upset if it was nothing."

Silence fell. For a minute there, I almost wished that Fin had told them all that I'd told him. But then I was glad that he hadn't; it would all make a lot more sense coming from me.

"Do you really want to know?" I asked. Elliot and Olivia both nodded; I sighed and leaned forward on my elbows.

"Bayliss wasn't there the first time this happened," I said. "Kay was, though. Baltimore's been called the city that bleeds longer than I've been a cop; the phone rings, we answer it, no questions asked."

"Child victims were always the worst…I drew primaries on the first murder of 1982…a little girl named Beverley Watkins. She had a charm glued to her mouth…it was the only clue we had. No one thought anything of it then, or even when the second murder happened. The third one, though…"

"Our lieutenant put the whole shift on it after that; the brass was on him about having a rookie as the primary once we found out we had a predator on our hands, but he kept me on…there were four of us: me, Kay, Stanley Bolander and Meldrick Lewis. He's the one Collins was talking about."

"Took us the better part of the year to find Collins; when we did, it was only me, Kay and Meldrick who were there. He…he'd left one of his victims on the headquarters stairs…thought she was dead, but she wasn't. Told us who he was, and where we could find him, so we went."

"He was alone there. Laughed when he saw who we were; said there was no way he'd take the fall for any of it. Meldrick and I went to arrest him…next thing we knew, Kay was yelling into the radio for ambulances: we'd been shot from behind."

I paused then and closed my eyes, still leaning forward, and once more wishing that Fin had already told them this. After a few minutes, I continued.

"About three weeks later, we got him again. Meldrick and I had come back to work a few days before; we talked the lieutenant into letting us handle the interrogation and it all went downhill from there."

"Meaning?" Olivia asked when I stopped again. I looked up at her and sighed.

"Meaning that he pissed us off enough to make us beat the hell out of him," I told her. "He probably got worked over at the prison, too, but he claimed police brutality, coercion….whatever he could think of. Abby…She tried everything she could to keep it all in, but she couldn't and we…we didn't have a case without it."

Dead silence filled the squad room after I finished. Elliot and Olivia were both staring at me in obvious disbelief; Fin looked indifferent, probably because I had already told him everything. After a while, though, Olivia spoke.

"Did you ever find out who shot you?" she asked. I nodded.

"It was Walker," I said. "Kay…well, she was the only one who could ID him, but he skipped town before anyone could nail him."

"And this is why you've been acting like this for the past three months?" Elliot asked. I nodded, and again, there was silence. It lingered until I spoke again.

"He only came up here because he knows I'm here," I said. "None of this would be happening if I'd nailed him the first time around…"  
"Ain't your fault he's a sick bastard," said Fin. "Probably would have come up here regardless."

"If you're really the reason he came up here, then why would he make himself so obvious?" Olivia asked finally. "Does he _want_ to go down for this?"  
"No," I said, "But he's cocky. He wants to see how many of us cops he can screw over before getting a walk, just like last time."  
"He's not getting a walk," Elliot said flatly. "Besides that, I doubt there's anyone at this point who would take his word over ours."  
"You'd be surprised," I said, "Trust me. If he thinks there's a way to get out of it, he'll take it and run."

"Not this time," said Olivia, and silence fell again. For some reason, it made me feel a lot better to hear them talking out loud about this; I don't know why, but it did. Maybe it was just because we were all working as a unit again instead of being at each others' throats like we had been for a while.

"You know, you guys didn't have to start working this again," I said finally. "You could've just left me hanging."

"That's not the way it works, and you know it," said Olivia, turning back to the paperwork spread out over her desk. "We start something, we finish it."  
"Or we get our asses chewed out by the brass, but that's another story," Elliot added. I snorted.

"Since when are we _not_ getting chewed out by the brass?" I asked. "If they spent one day in here, they'd know exactly how hard it is to handle a unit like this…"

"Here we go again," Fin muttered. He turned back to his own paperwork, content to ignore the conversation that had just been started; Olivia, however, abandoned hers again and picked up where I'd left off.

It didn't hit me until we were ten minutes into the conversation that this was the first time since this case began that we'd been like this with each other. It was of small comfort, which, needless to say, was definitely what all of us needed by this point….especially since I had the feeling that things were only going to get more complicated from here on out.


	20. Chapter 19

_A/N: Yeah, another one of those flashback scenes, but hey. At least I'm getting somewhere, right?

* * *

It rained. Lightning flashed every now and then; with it came the sounds of thunder. The door to Lieutenant Giardello's office was closed, but it was obvious that he was still present. Captain Granger had appeared about an hour ago; they had both been in the office ever since. Kay and I were the only ones currently present in the squad room; December was close to fading into January, and twelve names written in red were beneath my own on the board._

_Technically, I wasn't supposed to have been a primary anymore, which was probably the one reason why Granger had showed up in the first place. At least…it was the only reason I could think of as to why he'd come to the squad room at eleven o'clock at night. Kay was sitting about ten feet away from me at her desk; I'd been watching her on and off for a while now. A few minutes after I turned away for what felt like the millionth time, she slammed her copy of one of the files onto her desk and leaned back in her seat, scowling._

_"This is ridiculous, "she said. "There's got to be something more than this." _

_"There isn't," I told her, yawning. "You know that. It's no use even looking." _

_"Yes, it is," she countered. "A lot of cases stay open because no one bothers to look to see if anything's been missed." _

_"And I suppose all of yours are closed because you do?" I asked dryly, motioning to the board. Most of the names written under hers were in black; only two were still in red. She glanced towards where I was pointing and sighed. _

_"You could say that," she said finally. Silence fell when I didn't answer; she waited and then continued. _

_"It isn't your fault that we don't have anything. Screw whatever Granger has to say about it." _

_Yeah, right. Ignoring Granger and the rest of the hierarchy was easy enough for her; she had a perfect clearance rate and had already been in Homicide two years. Come January, I would only have been in for one. She seemed to know what I was thinking, though, because she leaned forward on her elbow and sighed again. _

_"The worst they can do is push you out of here," she said. "Other than that…" She trailed off there, and I leaned back in my own seat, closing my eyes as I did so. _

_She was right, whether I wanted to admit it or not, and I knew it. Taking me out of Homicide was the worst the department could do, but certainly not the worst I could do. But I didn't want to think about that, either. The door to Gee's office flew open; Kay and I both turned in that direction to find Granger leaving, red-faced and furious, and Gee standing in the doorway, looking quite indifferent. _

_"So, what's the verdict?" Kay asked bluntly, before I could speak. _

_"They want you out of Homicide, Munch," Gee said, ignoring her and turning to look at me. I said nothing; Kay scowled._

_"They can't do that; we're in the middle of a red-ball," she exclaimed. _

_"They can and they will," Gee told her, finally turning to look at her. "They want these murders closed, and it's not getting done."  
"I could care less what they want," I said acidly, starting to grow annoyed. "We don't have anything to get these murders closed, so how the hell can they expect results? What do they want me to do, pull evidence out of my ass?" _

_Gee ignored me. "The brass seem to think that these cases would be closed if I changed primaries," he said. _

_"So do it," I replied. "It's not going to make any difference." He didn't answer. I wondered for a moment whether or not I had crossed the line, but Gee didn't appear to be angry; rather, he appeared amused. _

_"I said as much to Granger, which is why he looked the way he did when he headed out," he said. "I would like to think that my faith in my detectives is not misplaced, therefore, I told him I would not change primaries. I think the four of you are sufficient enough."  
Kay and I exchanged glances at this; she looked amused, which I figured was probably because of whatever expression I was wearing .She obviously knew Gee better than I did, and had not expected him to buckle under any pressure from those higher up than us. _

_"You really expected him to give in, didn't you?" she asked. I gave her an annoyed look._

_"Well, I certainly didn't expect Granger to walk out of here having been told off," I replied finally. She shook her head. _

_"There's a first time for everything," she said. "I can't remember the last time Granger won one of these arguments." _

_"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" I asked. "They're probably going to have me out of here when this is over, no matter what Gee says." _

_"I wouldn't be too sure of that if I were you," Kay said vaguely. She picked up the file on her desk again and started flipping through it absently. "For all you know, we could end up closing this case, and they'll have no choice but to keep you here." _

_"Yeah, well…" I trailed off, unable to think of anything else to say; Kay looked over at me again and closed the file. _

_"You keep thinking like that, getting pushed out of here is exactly what's going to happen." she said. "Stop worrying, all right? Something's going to come through." _

_Or so she said. Six months and twelve different crime scenes had yielded us nothing. Either this guy was a cop, or he'd been doing a lot more research on this sort of thing than the others we'd dealt with. There was no way in hell any of this had been a random, spur of the moment decision, and both of us knew it. _

_"What time is it?" I asked finally. Kay sighed and looked at her watch before answering._

_"Almost twelve-thirty," she said. "I'm about ready to call it a day; what say you?" _

_"Odds are if I leave here, I'm just going to end up falling asleep at Abby and Rose's," I replied, "And I really don't feel like going through another lecture; I get enough of that here as it is." _

_Kay snorted. "You don't know the half of it," she said. "What you just saw? That was Granger in a _good_ mood." _

_"I'd hate to see what he's like pissed off," I remarked. _

_"Yeah, you would." Kay leaned back again in her chair and closed her eyes. "What time did everyone else leave?" _

_I shrugged. "No idea," I replied. "I think all of them took off when second shift left." _

_"That's great," she said dryly, "I can't believe they left the two of us to finish off the shift." _

_"I can," I said, trailing off for a moment before continuing on. "They're tired, Kay. They don't want to deal with this anymore." _

_"And you do?" Kay asked, opening her eyes and looking over at me with raised eyebrows. "If anyone should be using that excuse, it's you." _

_Footsteps broke into our conversation just as thunder cracked again, sounding a lot closer to us than it had before. Kay and I both glanced towards the squad room doorway, expecting to see another member of our shift…but it wasn't one of them. _

_It was a little girl, one who looked to be no older than eight years old. Her clothes were torn, stained with blood in some places; her eyes shifted nervously around, as if she was afraid she would be made to leave at any minute. Neither Kay nor I said anything, waiting, but she said nothing. _

_"You lost, honey?" Kay asked finally. The girl shook her head and burst into tears. Both of us exchanged glances; Kay rose to her feet and the girl ran to her, hiding her face in Kay's shirt. Her muffled sobbing filled the squad room for a long while, before she finally looked up, wiping at her eyes before speaking._

_"Can you help me?"

* * *

_

Samantha Marshburn was exactly two years older than Kelly Gallagher had been, but no less traumatized. She had, according to the timeline from the last call to her appearance in the squad room, been missing for exactly two weeks. March had faded into April, she was number twelve, and the break that we needed. As it was, however, she refused to talk to anyone unless Kay or Olivia was in plain sight, so we kept her in the squad room while we talked to her. She fell asleep in my lap as soon as we finished.

"I can't believe she got away from him." Tim's voice was the first to break the silence that had fallen over us; he looked towards Samantha, who had somehow managed to hide her face in my shirt and shook his head. "She's lucky."

That was the understatement of the year. Of course she was lucky; she was alive. The only thing that bothered us at this point was that it had taken her this long to run: Collins had had more than enough time to do what he would with her, and had taken every chance he'd gotten. Honestly, I was surprised she trusted me enough to let me hold her, but she did. Obviously she knew that she was safe now, surrounded by six police officers who would rather die than let anything else happen to her…or to any other child, for that matter.

Abby and Casey walked in, then, startling out of us out of whatever reveries we happened to be in. The expression on Casey's face was unreadable; Abby, on the other hand, was wiping at her eyes.

"What happened?" I demanded. Abby sat down on the edge of my desk, picked up a pen and started twirling it between her fingers.

"They convicted him," she said finally, quietly. "All counts."

It took me a while to figure out what she was talking about and then I realized that closing arguments in Walker's trial had been made a few days ago. I couldn't believe it had taken the jury this long to deliberate his fate, but obviously, it had. And now he was going to prison. Whatever expression I was wearing once I figured this out must have been the cause of amusement; I came out of my thoughts to hear laughter, not only from Abby, but from the rest of the squad. I couldn't blame them for it; it was high time for us to be able to find humor in something.

"Who's the kid?" Casey asked, motioning to Samantha. I looked down at her, reaching out to push a stray lock of hair out of her face before looking over at Casey again and replying.

"Number twelve," I told her quietly, "She got away."


	21. Chapter 20

A/N: Yeah, so I finally figured out that writing in the morning is a good way to relieve stress...as strange as that sounds. But yeah, I guess something good came out of it, because ch. 20 is finally finished, and LSM, this is for you.

* * *

We didn't hear anything else from Collins until April faded into May. This time, however, we were ready: we had enlisted TARU to help us trace the call. All we had to do was keep him on the phone long enough to get an accurate, if not exact location. That was the easy part. The hard part was keeping Collins' remarks from ticking us off too much.

When the phone rang, I reached for it, pressing the button that would allow all of us to talk to him. Seconds later, his voice filled the squad room.

"Well, well, well. Looks like the lot of you have finally managed to get a clue." Collins' voice was flat, to the point of being cold, but not one of us cared.

"Even numbers aren't working for you anymore," I told him. "Number twelve got away."

"I'm well aware of that, Detective, but tell me something. Do you really think that anything she told you will be able to help?"  
And there was his first mistake: all of the other girls he'd taken had been from families new to the city. Samantha Marshburn had been Manhattan-born and Brooklyn-raised.

"As a matter of fact, we do," said Abby, before I could retort. "Walker's already down for this, Collins, and you aren't that far behind."

"ASA Williams, I hardly believe that you really think that," said Collins, sounding amused. "I've gotten away with this before."

"But you won't get away with it again," said Elliot, "Your last victim here will testify if this goes to trial, not to mention the fact that she can ID you."

"Well, then, Detective Stabler, I suggest that if you wish this to actually result in something, that you and Detective Munch keep yourselves out of the interrogation room if and when you find me and bring me in," Collins said flatly. "Rumor has it that you've got quite the temper on you."

None of us said anything. How Collins had received that particular bit of information was beyond us, but he had it, and though it was irrelevant, it left us quite disgruntled.

"You're gonna find that out the hard way if you keep jerking us around," Elliot said finally.

"Is that a threat, Detective?" Collins asked, his tone suddenly icy.

"Depends on how you want to read it," Olivia replied, just as coldly. "You'd be better off if you'd let yourself admit you're not as perfect as you think you are."

"I will admit to nothing of the sort, Detective Benson, and I highly suggest that you don't get your hopes up." Collins paused and then continued. "I'm assuming that the lot of you have no ID for your eleventh victim?"  
"You know damn well we don't," Kay replied bluntly, "Why don't you just tell us who she is?"

"Because that would make it much too easy for the lot of you and that is something I don't wish to do," said Collins.

At this point, Morales, who was sitting closest to me, motioned that the trace was completed, thankfully having the sense not to say anything out loud.

"Thirteen is an unlucky number," I pointed out finally, "What are you going to do now?"

"That, Detective," said Collins, "Would be for me to know and you to find out. I'll let you get back to your work." A clicking sound told us that we'd been hung up on; silence fell and lingered. A few minutes later, Morales spoke.

"The calls bounced off of three different towers," he said, motioning to the computer screen in front of him. "All of them were in the business district."

"Anything specific?" Fin asked. Morales shook his head.

"Trace wouldn't go that far on a cell phone," he said. "That's all I can tell you."

"That's all we need." I rose to my feet and reached for the keys sitting on my desk. "Let's go."

Surprisingly enough, we found ourselves in the general location Morales had given us within the hour…not that it helped. When we got there, we found that the area Collins had been in when he'd called was nothing more than a bunch of warehouses. He could have been in any one of them; there had to be at least twenty, if not more.

"Damn it." Kay swore, running an exasperated hand through her hair as she looked around. "We're never going to find him."

"Yes," I countered, "We will. We just have to split up. You come with me. Olivia, you go with Fin; Elliot, you go with Tim." With this, I grabbed Kay's hand and took off, letting go only when I was sure she'd be able to keep up with me.

"For God's sake, John, there's got to be at least twenty-five of these things here, if not more!" Kay exclaimed. "We should've waited for backup!"  
"Screw backup," I replied. "We don't have time for it. Collins might not have acted like it, but I think he might already have number thirteen. Kay made a face but continued running after me, sliding to a halt after the sixth warehouse we passed.

"What?" I asked, stopping to turn and look at her. She made a shushing motion at me.

"Listen," she said. "You hear that?" Muffled sounds of things hitting the floor drifted towards us, and then the voices of people who were obviously loading whatever was falling onto something.

"It's nothing," I told her, "They probably work there, let's go; we're wasting time." We took off again at a dead run, which, for some reason, I found oddly amusing. I had told Fin years ago that I didn't do this sort of thing anymore because I was old and it was tiring…but I didn't feel tired….or old, for that matter.

"You all right?" I asked, turning back to face Kay; she nodded and we continued on. After what seemed like an eternity, a voice came over the two-way radio in her hands. We slid to a halt so that she could reply.

"Yeah, we're here, what've you got?" she said, trying to catch her breath as she spoke. Olivia's voice came back, drifting towards us as we stood there.

"Where are you?" she asked.

Kay frowned, turning around to get an exact location to give, but there was nothing to indicate anything and she sighed. "Looks like we're in the middle of this place."

"Good." Olivia paused for a few seconds and then went on. "Fin and I are on the left side…I think we might've found him."

"We're on our way." This time, it was Kay who took off running; I followed her and soon, we found Olivia and Fin. Elliot and Tim showed up a few minutes later, and silence fell between the six of us.

"What makes you think they're in there?" Tim asked finally, quietly, so as not to give away our presence.

"We came around the back way," said Olivia. "Saw a car with Maryland plates, figured it was him."

That was enough for me. I had half a mind to just walk in there, but I couldn't exactly do that with everyone watching me. We fell silent again and listened; five minutes passed before we heard an all-too-familiar voice drifting towards us.

"If you're lucky, you'll come out of here alive." I saw Elliot visibly stiffen out of the corner of my eye, but he didn't move. A few seconds later, the sound of a child's sobbing reached us.

"There's got to be a way to get in from back there," I said, and Olivia nodded.

"There is," she said. "You and Kay take that entrance; Elliot, Tim, you go in from the side, and Fin and I will move in from the front."

That pretty much settled it. Kay started walking towards the back, and I followed her. When we saw the entrance that Olivia had specified, we stopped.

"Five months," I said. "Five. And we're only just now finding this basket case." Kay shook her head.

"We're lucky." she said. "If he'd kept on killing girls, we'd have at least eighteen, maybe nineteen dead by now."

I gave an involuntary shudder at this: she was right, and I knew it. Even so, we remained where we were, listening, waiting for the right moment to go in. Finally, Elliot's voice came over the radio Kay was still holding onto.

"I've had enough of this," he said bluntly, "We need to go in."

"Fine," I said. "Kay and I will head in first; he's least likely to notice us since we're in back."

No reply came. I took this to mean that the others were all right with this. Kay had already started slowly opening the back door. Collins' voice was made that much clearer, and it was all I could do to keep myself from walking in there and shooting him with no questions asked. Kay's hand on my shoulder kept me from doing so.

"You walk in there like that, he's more likely to see you," she said quietly. "Let me go in first."

"Have you lost your mind?" I demanded. "You're not going in there first." I had the feeling that this protest was coming from the memory of her being the first one to go in when Gordon Pratt had ambushed us, but it made no difference. She could protest all she wanted, she wasn't going in first.

I walked in slowly, careful to make sure that my footsteps didn't make any sound. Kay followed, looking apprehensive. Both of us already had our guns drawn and ready. We looked across the warehouse to find Elliot and Tim already coming in from the side. Olivia and Fin were the only ones who had still not entered, which was just as well, seeing as Collins was facing that way. His victim stood in front of him, wide-eyed and frightened, tears streaming down her face. He was yelling at her to shut up.

"Bastard," Kay muttered. Her mouth was close to my ear, more to make sure that I was the only one who could hear her than anything else. I said nothing, but wholeheartedly agreed with this remark. My hands were shaking, which wasn't a good thing, considering that I was holding a gun, but I had passed the point of caring what happened to me a long time ago. I shifted, and one of the boxes hiding Kay and me from view fell with a resounding crash. Collins jumped, turning in the direction of the sound, and saw us. His eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Well, if it isn't the cavalry come to save the day," he said sarcastically. He shoved the girl backwards to get her out of the way; she fell backwards, only to be caught by Tim, who was standing closest to where they were, and taken quickly outside. A few minutes later, Fin reappeared in his place.

"Your game is up, Collins," said Elliot, stepping out from where he'd been standing. "There's no way out of this."

"Oh, but there is, Detective," Collins replied bluntly. He bent and drew a gun from the bag beside his feet, putting it to his head. "I could always take the easy way out of this."

"But you won't," said Kay. "You didn't the first time, and you won't now. That's not how you work."

"Men change, Detective Howard," Collins told her. "Especially within the span of twenty-four years."

Kay scowled. "It's _Lieutenant_," she retorted, "And I don't give a damn how much time's passed by, men like you don't change."

"What, pray tell, makes you think that?" Collins asked, twitching his finger on the trigger and making us all jump.

"If you'd changed, you wouldn't have started this again," I said. "You can't tell me you actually think we're going to believe you."

I had the feeling that pushing him like this was going to end up badly, but it didn't appear as if any of us really cared, so long as we weren't the ones who ended up getting hurt. Elliot had started to move forward; Collins eyed him warily, his finger twitching on the trigger again.

"Don't try me, Detective," he said warningly, "I'll do it." Elliot stopped in his tracks and remained where he was, his eyes fixed on the gun in Collins' hands.

"You really think that's going to fix anything?" he asked. "You do this, all you're going to do is make yourself known as a coward. A man who couldn't face up to what he's done."

"Oh, I'm perfectly capable of facing up to it, I just don't wish to. I'm sure you of all people would understand that," came the reply. Elliot ignored him; I, on the other hand, did not.

"You know, if you wanted to do this, you'd have already done it by now," I said. "Are you afraid to die?"

"I am afraid of nothing," Collins retorted, glaring at me as I moved to stand a few feet away from him, gun drawn and ready in case he tried anything.

"If you weren't afraid of anything, then you wouldn't be threatening to kill yourself to get out of this," I said. "You're scared a jury's gonna convict you, because you know exactly what happens to guys like you when they get to prison."

"I know nothing of the sort, Detective. But yes, I do have my worries that a jury might convict." said Collins.

Kay snorted, moving to stand so that she was directly behind him. "_Might?_" she asked. "They _will_ convict. They'd have to be a bunch of idiots not to."

"Be that as it may, Lieutenant," said Collins, finally deciding to refer to her by her actual rank, "There is always a chance that you will have a doubter among the twelve."

He'd moved the gun to his side. We, however, kept ours aimed at him, still unsure as to whether or not he was going to do anything.

"You come with us willingly, it'll more than likely count for you," said Fin. It was a tactic we'd used many times before, and it had, more often than not, worked. I couldn't help but hope that it would this time, even though I knew it wasn't likely.

"And what makes you so sure about that?" Collins asked, eyeing him warily.

"D.A.'s office tends to offer deals to people who come in willingly," I said, silently adding that there was no way in hell Abby and Casey would even consider it in this case, no matter what District Attorney Branch had to say about it. Collins seemed to mull this over for a moment before shaking his head.

"I'll take my chances," he said. "Odds are it'll come out just like it did before, and I'll walk again."

Cocky bastard. I had half a mind to just shoot him right there, somehow rationalizing this by assuming that if I did, everyone present would say that it was a clean shooting; that Collins had gone for me first. But I knew that if I did, it would bother me until the day _I_ died, so I didn't.

"So what are you going to do?" I asked finally. "You either come out of here in a body bag or in handcuffs. Take your pick."

Dead silence fell. We waited, guns still aimed directly at him, for an answer, but none came. Collins seemed determined to ignore us, even though we were standing right there. He'd closed his eyes and was humming tunelessly to himself as if he thought that when he opened his eyes, we'd be gone again. Only problem was that we wouldn't be.

A single shot fired startled us all; we hadn't expected anything, and therefore hadn't seen anything. Elliot stumbled backwards, clutching his arm; his sleeve was slowly turning red. Collins had moved without any of us noticing, and still had his gun pointed towards Elliot.

Two shots rang out…at least, two shots that I heard. I fell backwards, hitting my head on the cold concrete floor, but somehow managing to stay conscious. The lights above me seemed to be dancing. Before I knew it, I was looking into the faces of twenty-three different girls. All of them were smiling, their eyes filled with a light that none of us had ever had the chance to see.

Kay was standing over me, shouting something into the radio in her hands, something that I couldn't understand. I no longer saw Collins; whether he'd escaped or she'd shot him, I didn't know, and at the moment, I didn't care. All I could hear was the sound of laughter…all I could see were those girls, staring down at me, still smiling, and I knew somehow they'd reached a peace that I never would.

The first two from both times around stood at the ends of the lines…a forever nine-year-old Beverley Wilkins and a forever eight-year-old Makayla Lawrence. I watched as they walked forward, taking each other's hands before reaching for mine.


	22. Chapter 21

A/N: Epilogue comes after this...

* * *

"You just can't keep yourself out of trouble, can you?" I heard Kai before I saw her, opening my eyes to find that she was glaring at me, and that I was in the hospital. I said nothing, and she continued on. "I hope you know Rose is about ready to kill you and Abby both."

"I could care less about Rose at this point," I told her, "Where is everyone?" She gave me a look.

"The least you could do is ask about your wife, seeing as Kay near about gave her a heart attack when she called to tell what happened," she muttered.

"Wait a minute," I said, "Rowan's here?" Kai rolled her eyes.

"No," she said, "She went back to South Carolina. Of course she's here. I just kicked her out of here about an hour ago; told her to go eat something. I made Tim go with her."

"Is anyone else here?" I asked. An exasperated look crossed Kai's face; she reached into the bag at her feet and handed me a pair of glasses in a case; I took them out and put them on.

"Where'd you get these?" I asked.

"Home," she replied. "They were on the bedside table." She cut herself off, then, and sighed, leaning forward and placing her elbows on her knees. "What happened?"

"I got shot, that's what happened," I replied. "It was nothing."

"Nothing," said Kai, echoing my comment. She fell silent, resting her chin in her hands, allowing herself time to mull over what I'd just said. A long while passed before she spoke again. "You know, this isn't something you can just laugh off like last time."

"I know," I said. "Last time, I could actually get out of bed."

"Don't even think about it." Kai looked at me over her own glasses and sighed. "You don't remember anything, do you?"

I shook my head. She gave me a skeptical look, as if she were sure that I was only saying that to get out of talking, but she said nothing, so I spoke.

"You all right?" I asked. She laughed.

"Hardly," she said. "First you've got Kay making two of her shift follow _me_ around, and then you're the one who ends up getting hurt?"

"I'm a cop," I started, but she cut me off.

"Yeah," she said, "You re a cop, and you think that means you're freakin' invincible, but you're not."

I hadn't seen her like this in a long while. In fact, the last time I'd seen her react like this to something had been ten years ago…when we'd lost Gee. The sound of sniffling broke into my thoughts and I looked over to find Kai wiping at her eyes, still glaring at me.

"You're an idiot," she told me. "You ever get into something like this again, you'd better damn well hope they kill you, 'cause if they don't, I'll do it myself."

I had heard this threat many times before; most of the time from Abby, whom I didn't doubt would go through with it, other times from Rose, whom I did. Hearing it now from Kai only served to make me laugh.

"I should live to see the day you'd want to see me dead," I said. She narrowed her eyes at me.

"You think _I'm_ bad?" she asked. You wait. I'm out of here the minute Tim gets back with Rowan and Rose."

"You're not really going to leave me alone with them, are you?" I asked.

"I ought to," Kai muttered dryly, "God only knows you'd deserve it."

"That would be cruel and unusual punishment, which I might remind you is still considered unconstitutional." I said.

Kai snorted. "Yeah, I've got your 'cruel and unusual punishment'," she said. "You ain't seen nothing yet."

I was sure I hadn't. Then again, I didn't want to think about it, so I pushed it to the back of my mind and reached for Kai's hand.

"Stop worrying, will you?" I said. "I'm still here, aren't I?"

"Stop worrying, he says," she scoffed. "You know, I'm starting to think I'm really the parent around here and you're the kid."

"You're not old enough to be a parent."

"Says you. I know plenty of girls younger than me who are parents."

"But you're not going to be until you get married."

"If I get married."

"Trust me, you will."

Silence fell then, when she didn't answer. It amazed me sometimes how things could go from one subject to the next in the span of five minutes, but then, it had always been like that. I'd figured out a while ago that it was one of Kai's defense mechanisms: after the shift lost Felton, it got to the point where one couldn't hold a conversation with her for never knowing what the hell she was talking about. Annoying as it was, it was also a handy way to forget about everything else…or at least, attempt to. I had the feeling that she as still convinced that I couldn't see through her façade, but I could, and therefore knew that she wasn't really pissed off…just upset.

The door to the room we were in opened, then; both Kai and I looked over to find Elliot there in the doorway, looking uncertain.

"Give me a few minutes, huh?" I said; Kai nodded, rose to her feet and left, closing the door behind her as Elliot walked in.

Silence lingered for the longest time after Kai left, broken only by the sounds coming from various machines in the room. After a while, it started grating on whatever nerves I still had left, so I spoke.

"You know, it's not exactly like I can do anything to you," I said. "I'm supposedly under orders not to move; the doctors will have my head if my daughter doesn't get there first."

Elliot offered up a faint, half-hearted smile at this, obviously relieved that I was still able to make comments like that, especially since I was the way I was. He moved to sit in the chair that Kai had vacated moments before, but still said nothing. I watched him and sighed.

"What'd you come in here for?" I asked. He looked away, still without speaking. A few more minutes passed before he spoke.

"Why'd you do it?" he asked.

"Why'd I do what?" I asked in reply. He sighed and turned to look at me.

"Why'd you take those bullets?" he said again. "They were meant for me."

"I know," I said, "But that doesn't always necessarily mean anything."

Elliot shook his head, a rueful look crossing his face. "You know, if there is one person I'm never gonna understand, it's you, Munch."

I smirked. "That's what I'm aiming for," I said, "Now why'd you really come in here? "

"That _is_ why I came in here," He replied. "I want to know why you did it."

I sighed. The truth was that I didn't have an answer as to why I'd done it. At least, not one that was going to come easily. Part of me wanted to tell him that it was because I wanted him to know that I didn't have any hard feelings towards him. But I knew somehow that that wasn't it. So I shrugged.

"I don't know, 'I told him. "I just did. But it looks like you still ended up getting shot."

Elliot snorted. "This is nothing," he said, motioning to the sling he was wearing with his uninjured arm.

"Who else got hit?" I asked. Elliot sighed.

"It was you, me and Fin," he said. "Collins caught us all off guard...he'd been threatening to kill himself."

That I remembered. I didn't, however, remember much else after that. He must have known this, because he continued.

"He shot at me first…you moved in front of me and went down…he shot me and then went after you again; ended up hitting Fin instead...Kay shot him when he went back to you."

I was surprised to hear his voice break on the last word and moved to say something, but he waved me into silence as he continued.

"We thought we were going to lose you. Kay had already called for ambulances, but you…you were already going unconscious, and we could hear you talking, but we couldn't see who you were talking to."

Silence fell when I didn't answer, and lingered until I spoke again a few minutes later.

"Is he…?" I asked, and Elliot nodded.

"Yeah, he's dead." he said. "Kay shot him when he turned on her." I nodded, a sense of grim satisfaction settling over me.

"He say anything?"

"Confessed to an open murder in Baltimore from 1993…a girl named Adena Watson. Said the charms were all from the bracelet he took from her body."

Again, there was silence. Beeps from the machines broke it every now and then; I waited for Elliot to go on, and when he didn't, I did."

"Anyone bother to tell Bayliss?" I asked finally, heavily. "Adena Watson was his first case."

Elliot nodded. "Kay told him already. He…well, I don't know where he is; he took off a while ago."

I said nothing, even though I knew that Tim had taken Rowan, and more than likely Abby and Rose, someplace. If anyone would be able to get to him, it was Abby.

"You seen your family yet?" I asked. Elliot shook his head.

"No," he said. "I don't think anyone's been able to get a hold of them." He sounded indifferent about it, but I knew better.

"Just wait, I said, they'll show up. How long are you supposed to be here for, anyway?"

"One more night," Elliot replied.

The door opened for a second time; Elliot rose to his feet as Rowan came into view, having obviously been sent by Abby and Rose, it not Kai. This question, however, was answered when Kai peered over her shoulder and pointed towards Elliot.

"You've got people looking for you," she said.

"Who?" he asked. She rolled her eyes.

"Your family," she said, "Who else?" Elliot looked over at me; I shrugged and said nothing. A few seconds later, he and Kai disappeared from view, leaving me alone with Rowan.

"I seem to remember you telling me not to worry about anything," she remarked placidly.

"There's a reason for that," I replied. She sighed, sitting in the chair that Elliot had just vacated.

"I'm not too sure I like those reasons," she said. "What exactly were you doing that got you into this?"

"Let me see," I said dryly. "I was working a case, saving a kid and going after a murderer, who was also a pedophile, who now happens to be dead."

"You shot him?" Rowan asked, looking startled.

"No," I said. "If I had, I wouldn't be lying here right now. Kay shot him, and I'm not exactly complaining."

"You're going to be in a few days, because you, unlike the other two, aren't leaving tomorrow morning." said Rowan.

"Yeah, I figured as much," I said. "I'm just hoping they don't keep me too long…there's one more thing that has to be done."

Rowan gave me an incredulous look at this, shaking her head. "I can't believe you," she said. "First you're lying here because you've been shot twice, and now you're telling me this case isn't finished?"

"It's finished," I told her, "In the sense that it's closed, anyways." Rowan looked towards the ceiling, then, an unreadable expression on her face, but I had the feeling she was still wondering how the hell she got stuck with me. A few seconds passed before she looked back at me.

"I'm starting to think I know why cops' wives have such a hard time of it," she remarked quietly. "Getting a call saying your husband's been shot is a hell of a way to wake someone up."

I sighed and shifted so that there was room for her beside me on the bed. "Come here." She did, lying on her side next to me and resting her head on my shoulder.

"I hate knowing how close I came to losing you," she said finally. "I just…I don't think I've ever been that scared before."

"If I might remind you, I got shot about two and a half months after we got married," I said. She snorted.

"I hardly think that counts, considering," she said, smirking. "Not like this, anyway."

She had a point. As Kai had so willingly pointed out earlier, last time, all of us had just laughed it off. It was nothing. This time, however…I pulled Rowan closer, or rather, as close as I could, considering where we were, and sighed.

"I'm still here, aren't I?" I asked. She closed her eyes, seemingly content to just lie there without having anything else to worry about .

"Yeah," she said, "You're still here…but I still hate the thought that one day this might happen again and you might not be."

I realized then that this was the first time I'd ever had this particular conversation with her, and decided that I didn't really want to talk about it, so I said nothing, and after a while, she turned so that she was looking me in the eye.

"What were you thinking?" she asked. "Right…right after you were shot, I mean. What was going through your mind?"

"You," I said. "And Kai…and the cases." I trailed off there to give myself time to regain my bearings and then continued. "I saw those girls, Rowan…all twenty-three of them. They…they were smiling, like they knew justice had finally been served for them."

She said nothing. I waited for something, anything, but silence lingered. Noises from the hospital drifted in through the partially-open door; we listened for a while, and then Rowan spoke again.

"What else is it that you have to do?" she asked. I sighed.

"The last case our guy confessed to before he died took place in '93," I said. "An eleven-year-old girl named Adena Watson. She was Tim's first case."

"And this is supposed to tell me what?" Rowan asked.

"That as soon as I get out of here, I'm going to Baltimore with Tim and Kay, to tell Adena's family that we've solved her murder."

"You're gonna have to wait a while for that," she remarked.

"I know," I said.

"And I'm going with you," she finished. I stared at her, startled, and shook my head.

"I would think you'd want to stay here in New York. It's almost the end of the school year."

"I'd like to think that I'm able to consider my family more important than my work. My students can wait."

"True, but the district might not want to."

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

I nodded then, absently, suddenly feeling tired again. She seemed to notice this because she moved as if to leave, but I held her where she was.

"You want me to stay?" she asked, I nodded again and she settled back into the position she'd been in. Silence fell. I began to suspect after a while that she'd fallen asleep, but when I turned my head to look at her, I found her staring at me.

"What?" I asked. She shook her head and hid her face in my neck .

"Nothing," she replied. "I just…I don't want to do this again."

"Hopefully, you'll never have to," I said.

"Key word being 'hopefully'," Rowan muttered dryly. I laughed.

"Calm down, will you?" I asked. "I'm going to be fine."

Rowan ignored me. "You and I are too damn old for this," she said.

"I've still got a few years left before I have to retire," I told her, and she sighed.

"Yeah, I know." she replied. Silence fell again. She moved to look at me, and I waited, expecting her to say that I should leave SVU and find something else to do, but she didn't.

"What's that look for?" I asked. "I haven't even done anything yet."

"Obviously you did something or you wouldn't be here."

"You're never going to let this go, are you?"

"I'll let it go when we're both home again."

"I love you too, Rowan."

"We'll see." For some reason this comment struck me as amusing; I laughed and a few seconds later, she joined in.

She'd been right, though, in a way, about not letting it go until we were home again. It felt, to me at least, that even though Collins was now dead, none of us would be able to let it go until everything was normal again. Or rather, as normal as they could possibly get, considering. I looked at Rowan again, only to find that she'd fallen asleep, her face once more hidden in my neck. A nurse walked in, but said nothing; when she left, I closed my eyes and waited for what seemed like forever before sleep came to me as well.


	23. Epilogue

A/N: Finally, it's done! Bored, LSM, AT...this is for all of you...

* * *

About a week and a half later, Elliot, Fin and I were all given clearance to return to work. Kay and Tim had stayed in New York, content to explore while they waited for us. Abby had gone home to Baltimore with Rose, declaring loudly that she'd had enough of New York and of me to last her a lifetime. Rowan had gone back to work the day after our conversation in the hospital, albeit reluctantly. I had the feeling that she wouldn't have gone if Kai could have been persuaded to return home with Abby and Rose, but she hadn't. She was somehow managing to keep up with her classes via the internet.

The department decided, soon after we returned, that everyone involved in the case deserved commendations. It was ironic, in a way, seeing as they had been our biggest critics through the duration of the case, but who were we to complain? The only real downside to everything was being made to sit through evaluations with Huang, that and the fact that as soon as we came back we were forced out again on vacation. Then again, that wasn't such a bad thing.

As stubborn as she was, I hadn't expected Rowan to go back on wanting to go to Baltimore with Kay, Tim, Kai and me. She didn't. Two days after I went back, we left. Kai went back to school and Rowan went off to see Abby and Rose. Kay, Tim and I went to the squad room. Meldrick's shift was on when we got there, and upon being told that Collins was dead and that Walker had been convicted, he stared at us in silence for a long while, a look of disbelief on his face. After a few minutes, he decided to take our word for it.

"So, what now?" he asked finally. Tim, Kay and I exchanged glances before turning to look at him again.

"We find Adena Watson's case file," said Kay, and Meldrick stared at her .

"What for?" he asked. "That case is seventeen years cold."

"And Collins confessed to doing the murder," said Tim, cutting him off. He walked over to his desk and after a few minutes of rifling through the drawers came up with a well-worn manila folder bearing the date 1/31/1993.

"I've got it," he said. All of us exchanged glances again; Meldrick motioned to his sergeant and told her to take charge of the shift for a while before following the rest of us out of the squad room.

We found ourselves parked in front of Adena Watson's childhood home within thirty minutes, which was relatively good, considering traffic. Kay glanced at Tim as she turned the car off; he was staring at the file, which was lying open in his lap.

"How ironic is this?" he asked finally. "One of Munch's old cases turns into one of mine and then becomes the case that we've just closed."

"What goes around comes around," said Meldrick, "Collins murdered all those girls, tried to kill four cops…now he's dead himself." Tim sighed.

"But at what cost?"

The question lingered. None of us answered because there really wasn't any answer to give. Tim drew a thin silver bracelet laden with charms from his pocket and held it in his palm.

"Where'd that come from?" I asked.

"We never found Adena's missing earring," said Tim. "I found the bracelet in Collins' pocket and I bought the missing charms…stuck 'em on here. Figured her mother might like to have something of hers back."

Silence fell. A few minutes passed before we all got out of the car and started up the front walk. The sound of the doorbell ringing echoed. Footsteps told us that someone was home; seconds later, we found ourselves face to face with Adena's mother.

"Mrs. Watson, you probably don't remember any of us," Tim said quietly, "But we were some of the detectives who were on your daughter's case." His voice broke on the last word; he paused and then continued. "We've come to tell you that her case has officially been solved and closed, and to give you these."

He pressed the file into her hands, and then the bracelet. She stared at them for a long while, and it was hard to miss the light that had entered her eyes upon seeing the items: these things were what she needed to know that what we had told her was true .

No other words were exchanged. The door closed behind us with a resounding echo as we turned away. And together the four of us walked off, into the glow being cast by the streetlights, back into our city…back into the never-ending cycle that would always seem to define our lives.


End file.
